


I Wish You Would

by notaruka



Series: All We Know [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Humor, Bickering, But not without suffering a lil first, Drama, F/M, Flashbacks, Humor, Let Ben Solo be happy, Mutual Pining, Romance, Scoundrel Ben Solo, Slow Burn, Sulking, These two can’t catch a break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2019-10-22 05:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17657195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaruka/pseuds/notaruka
Summary: “Ben.”“Yeah?”“You’re the first person I ever met who truly understands me.”When he offers no immediate response, the chagrin begins to set in. There she goes again. Putting herself out there, only to be humiliatingly rejected. Why does she do this to herself?But then he speaks, startling her. “You’re the first person I ever met who made me feel like I wasn’t alone.”Sequel to I Know Places, but can be read as standalone.





	1. I wish you were right here, right now

**Author's Note:**

> Ok you win, sequel to “I Know Places”. You can stop rattling around in my head now. A girl’s gotta sleep.

The base is a flurry of commotion.

As soon as the news broke out, every Resistance fighter in the outpost dropped their respective tasks to rush over to the east side of the building, where their leaders are currently bent over the control room comms on tenterhooks at what is happening on the other side.

A young fighter named Finn, who had been too preoccupied rummaging around one of the storage rooms for bonding tape - of which, much to his irritation, they seem to be on perpetually low supply - emerges from behind a big, steel door to find hordes of people stampeding past him. “Hey!” he complains when he is unceremoniously shoved aside by an eager passerby. “Hey. Hey. Hey!” He roughly forces the nearest participant to an abrupt halt by the sleeve of her jacket. “What’s going on?”

“Something reckless,” the woman replies, before promptly yanking her arm back from his grasp and resuming her urgent path.

“What the...?” Finn breathes in befuddlement. The bonding tape falls limply out of his hands, long-forgotten, as he dazedly joins the frantic hustle of the crowd.

Items are dropped, furniture is knocked over, and responsibilities are carelessly discarded in the crowd’s haste to reach the nearest comm.

It is this madness that the young Jedi Knight, Rey, who had been stably comatose for the past three weeks, finally, inopportunely, awakens to.

She stumbles unsteadily out of the medical bay, blinking through the blurry dash of unfamiliar faces whizzing past her. “Excuse me,” she calls weakly, feebly. Her voice is not even audible to her own ears.

She has so many questions. What happened? What _is_ happening? How long has she been unconscious? Where is everyone going? Where is she? Where are her friends?

Where is _he_?

But her common sense informs her that attempting to deduce all of this during what appears to be an uncontrollable frenzy will inevitably be fruitless. Something tells her that if she follows the rush, she will find out soon enough.

* * *

General Organa’s voice pierces through the clamour of the crowd.

Rey skids to a stop as soon as her enraged, gravelly shout slams against her eardrums. “Leia,” she murmurs instinctively. As unethical as it is, and as cross as Luke would be with her if he found out she did this, Rey impatiently parts the dense mob in front of her with a zealous tug of the Force, creating a clear path straight to the control room. Ignoring the displeased interjections all around her, she steadfastly pushes her way through the mass of curious onlookers and charges in the direction of her General‘s voice.

But before she can reach her, two strong, urgent hands seize her by the shoulders.

Her best friend’s eyes gaze anxiously back at her.

“Finn!” she exclaims in a surprised squeal. “What the hell is going on?”

“This is _not_ good,” he hisses back. “Not good at all, Rey.”

“What’s not good?” she demands.

“They are going to screw this up for the entire Resistance!” he shouts furiously. “Han and Ben are trying to steal coaxium from the First Order!”

“Han an- _Ben_?” she splutters in disbelief. The final syllable comes out as a flabbergasted squeak.

* * *

Ben Solo throws himself against the banister of the suspension bridge, gasping with unbridled trauma.

“ _Dad_!” he screams hoarsely into the thick plumes of smoke billowing up from the canyon. His eyes feverishly scan the fiery carnage, but all he can see is grey and orange. “ _Dad_!” he bellows again, much more loudly and with uninhibited, gut-wrenching anguish.

“What?”

He whirls around at the gruff, vaguely-irritated response over his shoulder to find his father, standing right there, alive, three feet in front of him.

Han scowls at his son in bemusement, disturbed by the intensity of his overreaction.

“Oh,” Ben chokes out lamely. “You’re... You’re okay.”

“Yeah,” Han affirms with a nonchalant shrug.

“I thought you were...down there.”

“Why would I be down there?”

Ben gulps weakly. “I don’t... I don’t know.”

Han narrows his eyes at him. “Right. Well,” he grunts. “Come on. We don’t have much time left, kid. Quit messin’ around.”

Ben has to brace himself against the banister to process what just happened before shakily trudging after his father.

“What a bunch of moof-milkers,” Han scoffs as the two jog down the remaining length of the bridge. “Using up half their coaxium shipment to try and blow up the coaxium thieves. They might as well have agreed to give us h-”

Leia’s incensed growls crackle erratically through the comlink clipped to his jacket, interrupting him. “Do you copy? This is... There... No time to be... I repeat: do not...”

“Your mother’s gonna kill us,” he mentions, rather matter-of-factly.

“Give me that,” Ben tuts, snatching the comlink from Han’s jacket and determinedly clicking it off.

* * *

“Do you copy?” General Organa demands into the comlink in her hand. Her face morphs from aggravation to cold, hard wrath when she realises the line has been severed. “They switched it off! The buffoons!”

A familiar roar sputters falteringly out of a nearby comm, feeding a transmission straight from the Falcon to the entire room.

“Chewie!” Leia roars back, immediately barrelling over to it. Unlike Rey, she does not need the Force to part the crowd - her authority does that for her. “Chewie! What in the _galaxy_ do you think you’re doing? Whose idea was this?”

Chewbacca howls back an evasive response.

“If you have any sense at all in you, Chewie, you’ll stop those two fools from proceeding any further!” She pauses as she absorbs his garbled reply. “I don’t care if you’re sorry! Stop this! Now!”

“General!”

The Jedi Knight, Rey, suddenly appears by Leia’s side, seemingly exasperated after having wrestled and fought her way over.

“Rey! You’re awake!” Leia breathes. Despite the thoroughly _maddening_ nature of the present circumstances, she instinctively pulls the young girl in for a heartfelt hug.

“General, what is he doing?” Rey inquires. She does not need to specify which of the three she is referring to.

“He’s being a typical, boneheaded Solo with his father,” Leia grumbles resentfully.

Rey desperately seizes the comlink from Leia’s hand and holds it up to her lips. “Ben? Ben!” she cries.

“He can’t hear you,” Leia sighs in defeat. “They turned it off.”

“Then what do we do?”

Leia slumps into a nearby chair. “We pray that they don’t somehow mess up stealing unrefined coaxium from the First Order and bringing it back here before it destabilises and blows us all to the Outer Rim.”

Rey blanches. _Yup_ , she thinks to herself. _Sounds_ _like_ _the_ _Ben_ _I_ _know_.

Always giving her a headache.

* * *

The highest-ranking First Order officer in charge of the shipment marches swiftly down the entire length of the warehouse and into the safe room. He’d initiated all emergency security measures before making a dash for the shipment, but it would be futile if the rebels had already infiltrated the building.

“Sir, the comms are all down. They cut everything off,” a subordinate informs him as soon as he steps foot in the room.

He curses angrily and snatches his blaster from the table. “Begin preparations for immediate evacuation. Load the coaxium onto the transport-”

He is cut off by his own surprise when every light in the building is suddenly extinguished and they are entirely encased in darkness.

Blinded.

The next flash of light is blasterfire. It illuminates the room for such a fleeting moment that all the commanding officer can discern is that it strikes one of his men square in the chest.

He quickly ducks for cover behind the closest control panel as mayhem ensues. Blasterfire engulfs the room - a battle of blind luck. He can’t even tell who is shooting at whom, or how many of the offenders are rebels or his own. Slightly cleverer than his comrades, he merely crouches and waits, until the last shot is fired and the room falls silent.

Slowly, cautiously, he unfurls himself from his hunch, squinting against the darkness for any sign of movement.

A blaster shot comes hurtling towards him from somewhere across the room, narrowly missing his shoulder and hitting the wall behind him. On pure instinct, he fires madly back in that direction, too blind to even bother to aim. To his dismay, his blaster flies right out of his hand, as if wrenched away by invisible string.

He does not get the chance to react, for he is struck unconscious on the back of his head by the grip of a blaster within the next two seconds.

Han Solo smirks victoriously down at his victim, fishing a comlink from out of his pocket. “Chewie, we’re good. You can turn the power back on.”

The lights flicker on to reveal Ben on the other side of the room, the only other person still standing upright. They grin triumphantly at each other as they slide their respective night vision goggles up to their foreheads.

Han tosses his son a metal keycard. “Here’s the key. Do your thing and get out as fast as you can. We’ll meet on the Falcon.”

Ben catches the keycard and shoots him a casual salute before promptly striding over to the safe door.

* * *

The keycard isn’t the only security measure to the safe. But this facility is old and run-down, too poorly funded to build a second door impenetrable by a lightsaber blade. The keycard is all Ben needs.

He impatiently carves a wonky, makeshift entrance through the thick, metal door, regretting it when he only barely manages to twist his burly form through the distorted, misshapen opening like some sort of ungraceful contortionist. His momentary discontent quickly dissipates, however, when his eye catches the distinctive glow of blue emanating from the metal crate in the centre of the room.

The coaxium.

A jubilant smirk stretches across his lips at the magnificent sight. As much as he hates to admit it, these kind of transgressions have always invigorated him. He can’t deny he’s his father’s son.

He shivers at the biting cold of the temperature-controlled room. Though there’s no need to be quiet, he tiptoes over to the crate, too apprehensive to make any rash movements. It isn’t a large crate, but what’s inside is worth enough to feed a small moon. Even in its airtight confinement, the blue light of the coaxium still somehow manages to peek faintly through the container.

Ben draws in a deep breath and holds it as he carefully hoists himself on top of the crate. His movements are excruciatingly slow - the stakes much too high for them to be anything but. He reaches into his rucksack and extracts a large tube of what seems to be paste. Tearing the sealed packaging open, he pivots towards the centre of the crate and quickly squeezes out its black, sludgy contents on top.

The latest of his father’s handy discoveries. A tube of magnetic metal that solidifies once exposed to oxygen. The crux of their ingenious plan.

When the tube is completely spent, Ben sits back and watches the sizeable pool of black ooze transform into solid metal before his eyes.

“Okay,” he breathes, discarding the empty tube over his shoulder. He reaches for his lightsaber and reignites it with a brilliant whir.

Balance is key as he warily rises to his feet. With nothing to steady himself, slinking from one corner of the crate to the next to slice a circle out of the ceiling is undoubtedly a challenge.

Luke’s balancing exercises were always his least favourite part of training.

He completes the circle with a final sweep of his lightsaber, releasing the focussed breath he’d held. Raising one hand to the air and sheathing his lightsaber with the other, he conjures all of his might to dislodge the carving from the ceiling and expel it high into the air.

The sunlight that suddenly pours into the room is blinding. Ben shields himself from it - as well as the cascade of debris crumpling from the ceiling - with a defensive arm over his head.

When the dust settles, he beams up at the open air. “Too easy,” he drawls cockily, plucking out a comlink from his jacket pocket. “Alright, Chewie- _Ah_!”

He is cut short by his own scream when a large, heavy magnet on a cord slams into the crate from above, inches from crushing him. Before he can register what is happening, the crate under his feet is suddenly hauled up into the air - with him still on it.

“Dad!” he yawps in fright, instinctively flattening himself against the top of the crate. His hair flaps wildly in the wind as he is hurtled further up in the air at breakneck speed. “Damn it, you guys, _I’m_ _still_ _on_ _the_ _freaking_ _crate_!”

* * *

Han staggers rockily through the Millennium Falcon and comes bounding into the cockpit. “Sorry I took so long. Had to really make sure their ship was destroyed beyond salvage,” he pants. “You got the cargo? Great. Let’s go.”

Chewie twists around in his seat and peers up at Han in confusion. He grumbles a puzzled inquiry.

“What do you mean, ‘Where’s Ben?’” Han splutters incredulously. “I thought he was with you!”

Chewie counters with his own misbelief.

“He’s not with me! He’s in charge of the shipment, remember? I’m in charge of blowing the ships up!” Han explodes in alarm. He pales as a realisation dawns upon him. “Then that must mean...he’s...”

* * *

“...still on the crate!” Ben howls desperately into the comlink clutched between his fingers. When it yields no response, he angrily hurls it into the air. “Piece of Bantha crap!”

The shipment swings precariously back and forth as the Falcon soars through the sky. Ben begrudgingly surveys the thick cord that runs all the way up to his father’s ship, and cusses when he realises he has no choice. He’ll have to climb it.

He fastens his lightsaber against his belt.

* * *

“I know it’s too dangerous to carry the coaxium internally, but we’ve got no choice! This is my son we’re talkin’ about,” Han grumbles resolutely. “Pull him up.”

* * *

Ben is startled, but ultimately glad, when he feels the cord being pulleyed up by the ship. He was never a fan of Luke’s climbing exercises, either.

* * *

“Leia!”

At the faint, crackly sound of Han’s voice, Rey and Leia bolt out of their seats to hunch over the comlink on the table.

“Han! Whatever you think you’re doing, just stop it right now!” Leia chastises. “You’re going to get yourselves killed-”

“We did it!” he intervenes. “Leia, we did it. We got the coaxium, baby!”

“They did it?” Rey breathes in disbelief.

“Where’s Ben?” Leia demands concernedly.

“Ben is...fine,” Han replies.

Rey and Leia exchange a look of suspicion at the obvious hesitation in his tone.

* * *

“And what do you mean by ‘fine’?” Leia’s voice questions through the speaker.

“Uh...” Han glances over his own shoulder at Ben, who is currently lying flat on his back on the floor, too distressed to move. “He’s just a little shaken, but he’ll be fine.”

“Han, you fly that shipment straight to the nearest uninhabited area and you dispose of it right away!” Leia orders.

Han chuckles dubiously. “Sorry, sweetheart. No can do. This is just too valuable to us.”

“Han, you are not twenty years old anymore! Stealing unrefined coaxium is not-”

“Get the equipment ready! We’re gonna need this cargo frozen as soon as we land! Love you, honey!”

* * *

“Han!” Leia bellows. “That blaster-brained oaf shut me off again!” In her fury, her eyes meet Rey’s - so empathetic. “You know exactly what this feels like, don’t you?”

“Why are they stealing coaxium?” Rey asks.

Leia falls back into her seat. “Because we caught wind of the First Order mining it from Kessel. According to our sources, they were going to use it in a terrorism plot against the Republic on Hosnian Prime. Today.”

Rey blinks in surprise. “That...seems...like a valid reason.”

“Yes, if not for the _infinite_ number of better ways that this could have been handled,” Leia complains. “Reckless flyboys.”

* * *

Han secures the final strap on the crate in the cargo hold. “Alright, Chewie!” he shouts, sprinting back into the cockpit. “Punch it!”

With a murmur of assent, Chewie launches the Falcon into hyperspace.

* * *

“Dad!” Ben calls from the cargo hold. “It’s not lookin’ good!”

Han jumps to his feet. “What do you mean?”

“It’s lookin’, uh...” Ben hesitates. “It’s lookin’ a little purple!”

“Dammit,” Han hisses. “Chewie, how much longer we got?”

Chewie shouts his reply from the cockpit.

“Ten minutes?” Han repeats.

“Ten minutes?” Ben echoes. “I don’t think we have time!”

“We have time!” Han argues obstinately. “Trust me! I’ve seen coaxium glow red and still not explode. We’re good!”

“How red?”

“What?”

“How red was it?”

“Pretty red.”

“Because it’s getting kinda red!”

“Kriff,” Han grunts unhappily. “Chewie, we’re gonna have to make a pretty bumpy landing!”

“A bumpy landing? We’ve got a whole crate of coaxium on board!” Ben protests.

“Yeah, and it’s gonna blow if we don’t get it to a refinery _now_!”

* * *

A distant rumble alerts every fighter in the base to their arrival.

General Organa is the first to push her way through to the balcony outside, where she is granted a full view of the landing strips below. Rey and Finn are hot on her heels, both squeezing up against the balustrade on either side of her.

“Oh no,” Leia mumbles when she spots the undeniable shape of that wretched ship in the distance, careening towards them at much too high a speed for a vehicle loaded with a highly explosive substance.

“What do they think they’re doing? They’re gonna blow the entire base up with that kind of flying!” Finn objects with consternation.

“Hotheaded flyboys,” Rey mutters hollowly, her grip on the railing tightening with anxiety.

All they can do is look on helplessly as the Falcon draws nearer, and rely on their own tenuous faith in the Solo men and their furry Wookiee companion to not blow this base out of the galaxy.

* * *

“Chewie, slow down!” Han yells, grunting with effort as he steers the ship into as clean a landing as possible.

In the cargo hold, Ben is flung against a wall as the Falcon jolts with rapid deceleration. “We’re gonna die,” he murmurs numbly to himself, eyeing the crate of reddening coaxium.

“Ben, hold on!” his father’s voice shrieks at him from the cockpit.

He gazes around himself. “Hold on to what?”

* * *

The crowd gasps as the Falcon very gracelessly slams and skids against the landing strip.

Rey hides her face into Finn’s chest at the violent, deafening crash of the ship’s impact with the ground. She pinches her eyes shut, tensing against the noise, waiting through the seemingly unending series of thumps and clashes for the follow-up boom of a catastrophic blast.

But the ship slides to a clunky halt, no thunderous explosion to yield a climactic finale.

They made it.

Rey abandons her spot on the balcony and darts for the stairs. Finn and Leia follow suit, luring the crowd of onlookers down to ground level.

The boarding ramp unfolds from the ship just as they reach the ground. Out stumbles a very disoriented Ben Solo, clutching at his own bleeding head.

The mere sight of him knocks the very breath out of Rey’s lungs. He’s just as she remembered - tall, dark-haired, burly, and foolhardy.

“Ben!” she calls in a strangled cry.

Her voice pierces right through the haziness of his dull headache, like a jab of adrenaline straight to the neck.

“Rey?” he gasps. An unstoppable grin unfurls across his lips as his eyes land on her. He is just as taken aback to see her, and doubly as overjoyed to see her awake. But before he can skid across the snow and sweep her up into the warmest, fiercest, and most shamelessly affectionate of hugs, his father comes barrelling out of the Falcon behind him, wrenching him right back into reality.

“We gotta get this stuff outta here and refined right _now_!” Han announces in a raucous shout.

The reminder jerks Ben back into action, and he scrambles back into the ship, alongside a handful of volunteers, to retrieve the increasingly unstable cargo.

Finn stops Rey with a hand on her shoulder when she makes to join in. “You just got out of a coma,” he states. “We’ve got plenty of guys. They’ll take it from here.”

She stares longingly after Ben as she watches him Force-carry the cargo out of the ship with a couple of her fellow Jedi.

“Besides,” Finn mutters discreetly, “I think the General’s gonna wanna deal with them first.”

They both glance over at Leia, whose expression is so stone-cold ominous that even they are afraid of what she’ll do next.


	2. We’re a crooked love in a straight line down

Leia slaps her son across the face with her right hand and her husband across the face with her left. “You’re both demoted.”

The two men cradle their cheeks in shock, each wondering how someone so much smaller than them can inflict so much damage.

“Mom,” Ben speaks.

“Leia,” Han says.

They jog after her as she storms away.

“Leia, we got the shipment; we succeeded. There’s nothing left to worry about,” Han expresses earnestly.

“Yes, but at what cost could it have been?” she demands irately, swivelling back around. “And you think this is going to stop the First Order‘s attack on Hosnian Prime?“

“It’ll delay it,” Ben counters. “By a lot.”

“They’ll find some other way!” Leia explodes. “Risk versus return! One of the simplest principles of common sense! And you two run off, risking not only your lives, but all of ours, risking the First Order discovering our base, risking everything that we’ve built up over the past several years, just so you can feel like swashbuckling rogues with your reckless, hotheaded plan!”

Rey and Finn watch this altercation unfold from a reasonable distance across the room. Though they cannot pick up on every word that is violently spat out of the General’s mouth, there’s no doubt that it isn’t good.

“Your boyfriend’s getting a lot of flak, there, Rey.”

Rey twists around to glare at a group of her fellow Jedi, all congregated together like some sort of clique and each regarding her with individual variations of the same haughty sneer.

Finn restrains her by the arm when she makes to advance on them. “Let it go.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” she growls at them regardless.

“Rey.”

The familiar gravel of her master’s voice springs her into obedient attention, her posture automatically straightening.

“Master!” she exclaims breathlessly. “You’re here!”

Grim, quiet, and stoic as always, Luke Skywalker peels his hood from atop his head and greets his student with a polite inclination of his chin. “I’ve just arrived,” he announces. “It is good to see you awake. We have much to discuss. What is going on?”

“Uh...” She turns back to glance over at the Solos, who all appear to be screaming at each other in dysfunctional rage. “I think you’d better talk to General Organa.”

Luke casts his gaze over to his family, his lips pressed together in a hard, unimpressed line, and then drifts wordlessly away.

“What is it about her? It’s like she’s the only student who exists to him,” a bitter Jedi scoffs behind them.

But Rey doesn’t hear it, too at unease by her master’s foreboding countenance. “Do you think Ben will get in trouble?” she whispers concernedly.

Finn chuckles. “Solo? No. He’ll be fine. Trust me.”

* * *

The volume of their squabbling is beginning to reach ridiculous proportions, and the crowd of bystanders getting less and less sparse.

“Alright,” Han finally yields, holding his hands up in surrender. “Alright. It was reckless, okay? I admit it. It was reckless. I’m sorry.”

Leia glowers up at him with folded arms and a displeased pout.

“Really,” he insists. “We’re really sorry, honey.”

He jabs Ben in the ribs with an elbow, prompting a hasty, “I’m sorry too, Mom,” out of him.

She suppresses her angry tears with all of the pride and might she can conjure. “You could have died.”

Ben’s heart drops at the crack in his mother’s voice, and he curls a remorseful arm around her in apology. “Mom...”

She merely scoffs and wriggles out from under him, stomping adamantly away.

“I feel bad now,” Ben murmurs guiltily after her retreating form. “She’s really upset.”

“She’ll get over it, kid,” Han sighs. “She always does.” He shoots him a satisfied smirk. “Besides, she knows I’m good at this stuff. I used to do this kind of thing all the time when I was your age. In fact, I’ve stolen unrefined coaxium before. It’s actually pretty neat getting to do it again with my son.”

“Jeez. Then clearly I must be heading down the wrong path,” Ben quips.

Han rolls his eyes. “Whatever, you little rat,” he mutters, clapping a hand on his back and taking his leave.

Ben releases a weary sigh in his absence. With a moment to himself at last - and no explosive substances or screaming family members to occupy him - Ben finally gets the chance to scan the room, his gaze wildly roaming in search of only one thing.

When he finds her, she is already staring back, as if waiting all this time for his eyes to meet hers.

It’s as if she’s just hopped out directly from his memories. The cute dimples on her cheeks, the brightness of her eyes, the naive youth and untarnished innocence in her smile. When he’d first laid eyes upon her, he’d been too furious to notice her beauty; it is all he can see in her now.

He beams at her euphorically, and she returns it tenfold. His feet act of their own accord as they usher him in her direction, as if pulled by the Force itself to rush over and meet her.

“Ben.”

His uncle’s voice stirs him abruptly - but not fully - from his trance.

He skids to a reluctant stop and glances distractedly over at Luke, who is waiting for him on the other side of the room. “Yeah, one minute,” he slurs disinterestedly.

“Ben, now,” Luke orders.

The authoritativeness of his tone is like a brick wall, blocking him right in his tracks.

Ben frowns and stares longingly after Rey, who blinks over at them in oblivious bemusement. His hand is already half-outstretched in anticipation of pulling her into his arms.

But the stony look in Luke’s eyes is indisputable, and Ben can already see that he has no choice.

With a relenting sigh, he drops his arm and begrudgingly follows his uncle out of the room, leaving Rey alone and confused.

* * *

 

Luke tends to walk fast, and on top of that, wait for no-one, so by the time Ben catches up with him, he is already outside on the balcony, alone and pensively watching the sun crawl towards horizon.

“Yes?” Ben snaps irritatedly. His fingers drum agitatedly against the balustrade.

“Very reckless what you and Han did,” Luke remarks offhandedly.

“Is that why you brought me out here? To lecture me?” Ben grunts flatly. “Because, look, Mom already gave us enough crap about it, so I really don’t need to hear it a second time.”

“No, it is not why I brought you out here,” Luke returns evenly. “But I would be remiss if I did not mention it at least once.”

Ben sighs. “Yeah, well, like I said, Mom’s got it covered.”

Luke slid his gaze from the sky to his nephew, studying him carefully. “You appear to be anxious about something, Ben.”

“Do I?” Ben laughs in humourless sarcasm. “Hmmm. Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that I was just about to reunite with the person I’ve been waiting on for the past three weeks, and my uncle decided to interrupt that at the most _crucial_ moment and call me out here for seemingly nothing.”

Luke merely regards him with a mild smirk of amusement. “Always so impatient, Ben. It made you impossible to train.”

“Alright, and now I’m being criticised,” Ben scoffs. “Is that it? Because, if you don’t mind-”

“Stay right here,” Luke commands, just as Ben makes to push himself off the balustrade.

Ben sighs and clenches his fists together in anger, before dropping his head between his arms in defeat. “Fine,” he mumbles. “I’m calm. What is it?”

“I brought you out here to talk about Rey,” Luke finally, mercifully reveals.

Ben lifts his head to look at his uncle, a sick, nervous feeling churning in the pit of his stomach. “What about Rey? Is she alright?”

“If you mean whether or not she is healthy, then yes, she is perfectly fine.”

Ben gulps. “Then what?”

Luke turns his entire body to face his nephew, his expression impassive but stern. “As I’ve explained to you, the Force has shown me snippets of your future together in various forms. Most of what I’ve seen has been favourable: several instances of you two collaborating well together for a worthy cause. It’s why I sent her to retrieve you in the first place.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ben affirms.

“But I never really anticipated how attached you two would become to each other,” Luke explains. “I very naively did not think too heavily into the potential nature of your relationship. Perhaps I was too preoccupied with getting you safely home.”

Ben can already see where this is going. “Look, Uncle-”

“I know what platonic love is,” Luke interrupts him. “I’ve experienced it many times myself. But romantic love...” He pauses there pointedly. “That’s something I’ve only observed in others. But just because I’ve never been in love, doesn’t mean I don’t know how to recognise it when I see it.”

“Look,” Ben repeats, “Uncle. I know what I’m doing, alright? I don’t even wanna be a Jedi. This is honestly not an issue.”

“You don’t want to be a Jedi,” Luke concurs. “But what about Rey?”

Ben opens his mouth, ready to argue, but quickly realises he has no rebuttal.

_Rey_. _What_ _about_ _Rey?_

The question echoes in his mind for a long time, unanswered.

“You’re both adults,” Luke continues. “So I am not going to forbid you from anything. But Rey is young - much younger than you - and all I’m asking of you is that you think about what repercussions your actions will ultimately have on her future.”

Ben stares down at his fingers, speechless.

“She wants to be a Jedi. And as her master, I believe that she can be a great one,” Luke reveals. “Maybe even one that this galaxy sorely needs. You may not have aligned well to the ways of the Jedi, my nephew, but I think you and I both know that she has.”

Every word is like a figurative strike to Ben’s face, except somehow much more painful than the one delivered to him by his mother. Throughout all of this, Ben has only ever seen his own yearning for the girl. Blinded by his longing, he’d never stopped to think about what should happen once she woke up, as opposed to what he wanted.

“I trust that you will make the right decision, Ben,” Luke tells him.

It sounds like he should already know what that is.

After the pronounced silence that follows, his uncle leaves him standing out there on the balcony, madly wrestling between his conscience and his desire.

* * *

Ben tries as hard as he can over the next couple of days to avoid Rey, but there’s no stopping that girl once she sets her sights on something. She is tenacious.

She catches him one morning on his way to meet his mother, when he is momentarily distracted and his guard happens to be down.

“Hey,” she pipes up, exiting a conversation with Luke.

He is startled by her unexpected presence, abruptly straightening in an awkward jerk. “Oh, hi.” His eyes flit nervously to his uncle over her shoulder, who is stoically scrutinising them across the distance with a watchful gaze.

She jovially skips up to him, all bright eyes and shallow breaths and a big ball of uncontainable energy. A brief pause, a hesitant once-over, and then she lurches forward, throwing her arms around his middle.

Her embrace surprises him, but his body instinctively sinks into it. His arms, after sitting suspended in the air for a few beats of shock, naturally curve around the small, delicate shape of her torso. It feels like a relief to him, being able to hold her again.

But there is something stiff and reserved about his body language, which she is instantly able to detect. He does not wind his arms around her waist, or bury his face into her neck, or squeeze her with uninhibited vigour. Instead, he merely holds her, his arms exerting no force, his back straight and his neck upright, only barely reciprocating half of what she is giving in.

She pulls back, confused, a little chagrined, and frowning just slightly at the way he seems to evade her gaze. “I missed you,” she blurts, despite her reservations. “It’s good to see you again.”

He scoffs. “Weren’t you awake for, like, five minutes before you saw me?”

“Yeah, but...” She shrugs. “You’re here.”

“Yeah,” he says tersely.

“Why did you stay?”

The real answer, “You,” is something he needs to summon a lot of energy to not confess to her. “I reconciled with my parents,” he relays instead. “And Luke, albeit to a significantly lesser extent.”

“That’s good,” she says happily. Her smile is like a beam of sunshine directly to the face. “I’m so glad.”

He feels awful, not returning that smile. There is so much joy in it, so much delight. It’s her eyes that get to him the most; they’re so full of innocence, hope, excitement, longing. Being cold to her feels like not only a disservice to her, but also hugely to himself. He wonders why, no matter which “right thing” he opts to do, it always ends up flooding him with self-loathing.

She is too elated to see him here to do anything but act on her feelings, even though her subconscious senses the many ways in which he is withdrawing from her. Her hands find his chest, and she angles her face up to his, her lips eagerly reaching for him.

His heart almost explodes in its panic to not give in. Luke’s eyes are boring admonitory holes into him from across the room. Too taken aback to formulate anything remotely cleverer to do, he stumbles back on one foot and quickly ruffles her hair, like she is nothing more than a furry pet to him.

As if he doesn’t already hate himself for it enough, the wounded expression on her face almost floors him with guilt. If he weren’t absolutely engulfed in shame, he would’ve found it quite cute and funny, the way she was scowling up at him with mussed-up hair.

“I’m glad, too,” he mumbles rigidly, internally cringing at his own lack of tact. “I’ll see you around.”

It could not have been a more indelicate way to leave, but it’s all he really has, for it would have only taken one more glimpse of her troubled, innocent face for him to cave into his own rampant feelings.

* * *

 

Rey can’t sleep most nights.

It might be due to the fact that she’d been unconscious for three weeks straight.

Alternatively, it might have something to do with a certain tall, dark-haired, good-for-nothing flyboy, who went from passionately kissing her one moment to condescendingly ruffling her hair the next.

The interaction was quite strange, to say the least. At first she was surprised at his rather odd response to her advances. And then humiliated. And then confused. And then, after pondering it for several minutes further, she reverted to humiliation, before bypassing confusion altogether and jumping straight to hot, white rage.

But anger is a familiar sensation to her now, especially when it comes to Ben.

She rides it out by gently transitioning back into her training, as she has elected to do tonight. It occupies her mind better than sleep ever could, though the persistent pang in her thigh every time she strains it is an irksome reminder of their recent escapades.

When her muscles reach the point where she can barely stand from the ache, she decides to call it a night, flinging a towel over her shoulder and quietly padding out of the training room. It is almost dead silent around the base at this time of the night, save for the dull hum of the electronics and the machinery. She finds it peaceful as she saunters alone down the halls.

That is, until she rounds a corner and barges right into a solid body.

She stumbles back several feet and levels her quarterstaff at it in instinctual defence.

“Whoa! Whoa! My heart! It’s just me!”

She recognises the irritable grumble of that voice immediately, and thereupon lowers her weapon. “Han! You frightened me!”

“ _I_ frightened _you_?” Han huffs sceptically. “What are you doin’, creepin’ around in the dark with a weapon?”

“I was training!” she huffs back. “What were _you_ doing?”

Han sighs as he rubs both hands down his face. “I was looking for my lucky dice. Have you seen them?”

Rey pinches her lips together unhappily. “Your son probably has them,” she tells him. “I always saw him wearing them around his neck.”

“Years of estrangement and that boy has been hoggin’ those dice from me ever since,” Han grouses. “I thought I’d lost them. When I spotted them there, dangling around his neck, I was livid. Snatched them right back.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “Han, did you really think he wouldn’t immediately steal them back from you?”

“I searched him,” Han insisted. “I searched his entire room. Nowhere.”

“You’ve got to be cleverer than that,” she retorts. “And remember, every trick he knows, he learned from you.”

An agreeable smirk crosses his face as he slowly absorbs her advice. “Yeah. You’re right!” He grins down at her fondly. “Know him pretty well, don’t you?”

She ducks her head to hide her reddening cheeks and merely shrugs, wandering into an adjacent room and slumping into one of the chairs. “I thought I did.”

Her eyes dance thoughtfully across the flickering switches and lights on the control panels in front of her.

Han decides to join her, settling down into one of the opposite chairs. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” she sighs wistfully. “He’s been acting distant towards me ever since... Well, ever since I woke up.”

“I don’t know about that,” Han says. “But back on Crait, when he first brought you back to us, he refused to leave your side for a long time.”

Rey’s eyes dart up to meet his. “Really?”

“Of course,” Han laughs. “I’ve never seen Ben fret about anyone that much. The kid cares about you an insane amount.”

“Maybe he just feels a bit weird being around me in the Resistance,” she posits hopefully. “He doesn’t know how to act.”

“Perhaps,” Han concurs. “Just talk to him. I know Ben; he tries to be cool, but he’s actually quite awkward.”

Rey finds that endearing. She smiles affectionately at the notion. “It’s good to see you’ve reconciled,” she mentions. “Although, jarring, to say the least, given that I sort of went to sleep, woke up, and you were suddenly all a family again.”

Han chuckles. “We had a lot to work through together,” he admits. “A lot of apologies were thrown around. A lot of blame, though, too. And a lot of screaming.”

“I might have caught a peek of that the other day after the coaxium incident?”

He winces. “We’re still workin’ on it.”

She nods acceptingly, idly running her fingers along the indentations on the table. “Ben never told me what happened between you guys,” she brings up tentatively. “Why he left all those years ago.”

Han’s face noticeably falls. “He didn’t really leave,” he reveals morosely. “We kind of sent him away.” He brings a tired hand up to his forehead. “All those years lost. We’ve regretted it ever since.”

Rey’s compassion overtakes her, and she closes a hand over Han’s on the table. “You don’t have to tell me everything.”

He supplies her with a weak smile. “You brought him back to us, though,” he declares. “Thanks, kid.”

Rey smiles tenderly back.

Just when she is about to express her own sentiment of gratitude, the rapid thumping of hurried footsteps suddenly interrupts their heartfelt exchange.

They twist around just in time to spot two figures racing past their room. Their discreet, agitated whispers are just barely audible as they sweep down the hall.

“...to wake up the General. This is extremely urgent...” one of them hisses.

Han and Rey need only glance at each other once before both springing out of their seats in tandem and bounding out of the room.

“Hey. Hey!” Han calls out to the two men up ahead.

They each skid to an unstable stop and wheel around in reaction.

“Captain Solo,” one of them greets him. “Jedi Knight Rey.”

“What’s going on?” Han questions.

“We’ve just received a transmission, Captain, from our scouts in the Hosnian system,” the young fighter replies. “It’s the First Order. They‘ve completed their weapon. And their first target is Hosnian Prime.”

Han clenches his jaw in dismay. “Wake up the base. Now.”


	3. Guess you wanna run and hide

Every Resistance fighter in the building is gathered around the map table in the base’s briefing room, eyes alertly trained on the large, blue hologram of what appears to be a planet projected in the centre of the room.

General Organa and Luke Skywalker are front and centre at the table, avidly discussing something with Finn and Captain Poe Dameron in hushed whispers and animatedly gesticulating at the map in front of them.

Rey sits huddled up against Rose Tico, a ship mechanic and her only other friend at the Resistance barring Finn, her cloak wrapped snugly around her like a blanket against the early morning cold.

“What do you think this is about?” Rose murmurs quietly.

“I don’t know,” Rey mutters cryptically. “The First Order is about to do something bad. Really bad.”

Though the severity of the circumstances is not at all lost on her, Rey can’t help but be just a little distracted by the fact that she can’t seem to spot Ben anywhere. Absentmindedly, she wonders if anyone woke him, and if she should go and look for him.

But before she can entertain the idea for long, Rose appeases her with a giggle. “Solo looks like he just rolled out of bed more than any of us.” She nudges Rey on the arm and nods in Ben’s direction, instantly drawing her attention.

Rey smiles.

He does look like he just rolled out of bed. Eyes squinty, hair tousled, mouth yawning. He enters the room while shrugging on a jacket, blinking dazedly against the brightness as he surveys the crowd.

Her hand instinctively twitches in her lap, prepared to wave him over the moment his eyes meet hers.

But to her chagrin, they glide right over her, as if she were nothing more than a stranger. As if he didn’t know her.

Rose says something to her, but Rey doesn’t hear it as hot, searing mortification impales her through the middle. She watches with outrage as Ben elects to approach another Jedi Knight instead - a girl named Catyra, who also happened to be one of Rey’s _worst_ personal tormentors throughout Padawan training - and settles on the wall beside her. Mortification boils over into wrath when he casually greets her with a charming smile - _that_ charming smile that Rey had thought was only ever reserved for her.

Rey had never fancied herself a jealous person, but she certainly feels it now. It’s surprising that Ben can’t actually sense the piping-hot daggers of fury she is glaring in his direction. She clenches and unclenches her hands as she carefully studies their behaviour, her teeth gritting together when Catyra places a hand on Ben’s forearm to say something into his ear. If she were holding her lightsaber, it might have snapped in two.

“Alright, everyone,” Poe Dameron shouts over the chatter of the crowd. He is a natural-born leader, his authoritative voice promptly demanding the full attention of every person in the room. “Settle down. We have some news.” He glances over at Leia, who nods at him in assent. “As we all know, the First Order have been working on an extraordinarily powerful superweapon called Starkiller Base. According to our scouts in the Hosnian System, the weapon has just today been deemed operational. It’s fully integrated with an existing ice planet and is capable of destroying an entire system of planets.”

A series of horrified murmurs and appalled gasps ripples through the room.

“So essentially, it’s another Death Star,” Han pipes up from the back.

Chewbacca provides a moan of concurrence beside him.

“Not quite, Han,” Luke responds placidly.

Poe nods and hits a control on the table before him. “This is what the Death Star looked like,” he commentates as the hologram flickers to a map of the Death Star. “And this is Starkiller Base.”

The hologram shifts to reveal Starkiller Base’s relative size, practically dwarfing the Death Star in comparison. This spurs another series of agitated murmurs.

“So, it’s big,” Han scoffs. “That hardly matters. We just need to blow it up. There’s always a way to do that.”

“Han’s right,” Leia agrees. “And luckily, we have just the ex-stormtrooper to help us.”

Finn steps forward, expression stern and determined. “I was only around to familiarise myself with the weapon’s blueprints, but by the time I’d left, they’d already begun construction. The blueprints were final,” he divulges. “The planet draws its power from the sun. Every time it needs to be charged up, it sucks an entire star into its core and uses that energy to obliterate entire planets.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Han remarks.

“It is,” Finn agrees. “Which is why they have a thermal oscillator to contain all that power.”

“So we go in and we blast that oscillator with everything we got,” Poe concludes. “It’ll destabilise the core and cripple the weapon.”

“But the shields,” Finn mentions. “We need to first get through the shields.”

“Blow ‘em up!” Han exclaims. “With the coaxium we stole.” He shares a knowing wink with Ben across the room.

“That’ll draw too much attention,” Finn refutes. “And we’ll need to be discreet. We’re gonna have to manually shut them down. There are three different outposts on the planet, all contributing a shield layer each.”

Han’s elated grin falters. “Three of them?”

“We’ll need to somehow get on that planet, take them out one by one, and then get out, all without alerting the First Order,” Finn summarises. “The good news is that the locations are relatively remote. Each station will only have a handful of stormtroopers that we’ll need to take out. Comms are all on wire, so we can easily cut them off. The bad news is that they’re all quite a distance from each other. It’ll take some time.”

“We’ll need a strike team for this,” Poe says, turning to Luke and Leia. “No less than three and no more than four.”

“Alright, I’ll go,” Han concedes, leaning forward with his hands in the air. “Chewie and I are veterans at this stuff.”

“Like hell you will, old man.” All eyes are on Ben as he pushes himself off the wall and steps forward. “I volunteer to go in my father’s place.”

Despite her personal qualms, Rey’s heart can’t help but swell with admiration. She finds her anger quickly melting away.

Han, on the other hand, gives an indignant huff. “Who are you callin’ old?”

“It’s time to face facts, Dad,” Ben drawls, patting him on the back. “You’d only slow us down.”

“Why, you-!”

“Alright,” Leia quickly steps in. “Ben Solo will lead the strike team on Starkiller Base.”

“I will also go,” Finn offers. “I know the blueprints. I know how to find the outposts. I also know how to access the systems to disable the shields, but we’ll need a codebreaking expert in case they’ve updated their security walls.”

“I volunteer to come along and disable the shields,” Rose proffers, rising from her seat. “I have more than enough codebreaking experience to help out.”

Emboldened by her friend’s proclamation, Rey stands and makes a proposal of her own. “I’m in, too,” she says. “Just because this mission needs a little Jedi luck.”

She meets Leia’s eyes across the room, warm and proud. Her master, Luke, provides her with a nod of approval.

“Actually...”

At the sound of his interjection, Rey snaps her gaze over to Ben across the room.

“I think it’s best if Rey doesn’t go,” he opines.

The ebbing flame of rage in Rey’s core is suddenly rekindled.

“What?” she hisses, incensed.

This is the first time he’s even acknowledged her since he entered the room, and _that’s_ what he chooses to say?

“She’s just recovered from a coma,” Ben continues, ignoring her. “Her leg is still injured. She might end up being a liability.”

Finn, Poe, and Han all wince in unison at his callous words.

“Plus, we already have our three,” Ben adds boldly. He turns specifically to Luke for support, of the undoubted belief that, out of everyone in this room, his uncle will understand his sentiment.

He is, however, sorely mistaken.

“I think she’ll be fine, Ben,” Luke says. “You two have proven to work well together in the past. I think her presence on this mission will be favourable.”

Ben practically gapes at him with dismay. Stunned that his uncle would contradict him, he can only shut his mouth in speechless defeat.

“Besides,” Luke adds, “you’ll need someone to help you pilot the Falcon.”

“Chewie can help me!”

Rey’s mounting outrage at Ben’s behaviour overwhelms her entirely, and she spontaneously jumps out of her seat. The raucous screech of the legs of her chair scraping loudly against the floor immediately silences the room. Seething with anger, she stomps madly across the room, as if charging directly at him with the objective of tackling him to the ground.

Ben holds his breath as she draws nearer, flinching when it seems that she will crash right into him.

But she only knocks him aggressively aside on her way out, leaving him stumbling backwards and stupefied.

He turns dumbly to his father, who merely shrugs at him and motions in Rey’s direction.

“Rey,” he mumbles, before spinning around and chasing after her.

Leia surprises everyone by chuckling. “Look familiar, Han?” she remarks.

Han blinks at her in surprise.

* * *

The air is crisp and cool outside, but does nothing to alleviate the hot waves of anger radiating from Rey’s trembling body.

Once at an adequate distance from the building to ensure privacy, she acquiesces to Ben’s persistent shouts of her name, pivoting on her heel so suddenly that he almost slams right into her. “What’s with you?” she demands. “Why are you being so cold to me?”

Ben hesitates, before stammering out a weak, “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean,” she spits. “You’re treating me like you don’t even know me! Like we didn’t just go through all of that together! Like I’m... I’m...” She swallows down the rising lump in her throat. “Like I’m nothing.”

It only wounds her more when all he does is stare back at her wordlessly for a while. “I don’t know what you expected.”

“What I expected?” she echoes breathlessly. “Look, I didn’t even... I didn’t even want to go on that mission in the first place! I didn’t want to meet _you_! Babysitting Luke’s disobedient nephew? How fun could that have been? And I didn’t even _like_ you! You were so annoying! When you weren’t trying to escape, you were lying to me, or making fun of me, or purposely irritating me...”

His heart twists at her rant, which, although laced with fury, only invokes torrent after torrent of nostalgia.

“But...why did you have to look at me like that?” she sputters emotionally. “Why did you have to kiss me?”

He sighs and evasively turns away, combing his fingers through his hair.

“Why do that, huh? If you’re just going to pretend it didn’t happen later?” she desperately implores. “Why are you doing this to me?”

The truth simmers volcanically beneath his skin, threatening to gush out in an explosive eruption at any second.

_Push_ _it_ _down_ , he urges himself. _Deep_ , _deep_ _down_.

“Look, Rey,” he says instead, summoning every ounce of energy in his body to keep his voice even. “Things were different back then, alright? When it was just you and me. I wasn’t thinking. I was delirious with fear at the time. That’s why I kissed you. I just saw you there, and I thought I was going to die, and that was it.”

There is no way he would have been able to maintain this facade if he saw the wretched way her face simply crumples in anguish at his words.

“Liar,” she accuses amidst a sob.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs aloofly. “I shouldn’t have misled you.”

“I don’t believe you,” she insists shakily. “You can’t be... You can’t be this much of a scoundrel. You just can’t.”

He keeps his eyes downcast.

“I... I didn’t even like you!” she explodes. “You made this happen! You...!” She drops her head in woe. “You cruel man!”

He flinches as she feebly pounds her fists against his chest - too weak with grief to inflict any real harm - before storming back toward the base, choking out broken sobs into her hands along the way.

_Let_ _her_ _go_ , he commands himself, fingernails digging into the palms of his hands with the intensity of his restraint. _Just_ _let_ _her_ _go_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I decided to make Finn and Rose not totally useless in this universe


	4. You still don’t know what I never said

One night. That’s all they get to prepare.

There’s no point in sleeping if there are only a couple hours available for it. That’s always been Ben’s logic. It nearly takes him two hours to even fall asleep in the first place.

He paces around the base instead, drinking in the flurry of a rebel army with a purpose, searching for something to do.

“Just have a rest, Captain Solo. We’ll take care of everything on the home front,” he is assured by every soul he approaches.

_If_ _I_ _could_ _rest_ , he inwardly grumbles, _I_ _would_.

“Hey, kid.”

His father’s voice whirls him into action. He snaps his head up from its bow, having been stagnantly hunched over in a seat for a good half hour. The way he looks up with bright, hopeful eyes is almost comical, and a little boyish.

It widens Han’s existing smile as he dances up to him. “Wanna see something cool?” he whispers, discreetly enough to arouse suspicion.

“What?” Ben mumbles cautiously.

“Don’t... Don’t tell your mother about this, alright? In fact, don’t...don’t tell anyone about this,” Han says, his eyes darting about manically.

“O...kay,” Ben hesitantly agrees.

“Look what Chewie and I put together,” Han practically giggles. Without so much as a semblance of forewarning, he pulls out a glowing red vial from the inside of his jacket.

Ben sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Dad! What the-?” he hisses, leaping onto his feet and shielding the vial from sight with his torso. “Is that what I think it is?”

“We saved some,” Han snickers gleefully, waving it in the space between their bodies. “Still unrefined. But this container,” he says, blatantly tapping the vial with a finger as Ben desperately attempts to smother it away, “keeps it temperature controlled. It won’t blow up until it’s exposed.”

“So you’re telling me if you dropped that thing right now, it would shatter and blow up the entire base?” Ben says incredulously.

“No,” Han replies, dead serious. “Not the _entire_ base. Maybe just half of it.”

“What-? Argh-! J-! Are you crazy?” Ben scolds him in a hushed stutter. “How did you even sneak that out without getting caught?”

Chewie meanders up behind Han, growling out a matter-of-fact remark.

“Are you kidding? Do you know how dangerous that is?” Ben sputters. “Seriously, Chewie, you were on board with this?”

“It was his idea,” Han mentions.

Chewie shrugs nonchalantly.

“I can’t...” Ben scoffs, flinging his arms up in the air.

“I thought you’d be excited,” Han says disappointedly. “We did this for you.”

“For me?”

“Yeah. What if you guys don’t have time to manually disable the shields? What if it’s five minutes to Hosnian destruction, you’re surrounded on all sides by stormtroopers, and you’re on the last shield station? You’re just gonna give up?” Han wiggles the vial in front of Ben’s face with his fingers. “This is your last resort.”

“Please don’t put that in my face,” Ben deadpans.

“Look, it’s robust, alright? It won’t explode if you drop it. Only if you hurl it at the ground with force, or, ideally, shoot it.”

“Great, so if I keep it on my belt and happen to get shot there, I’m getting blown to pieces?” Ben returns.

Han sighs. “Just take it,” he says. It sounds like a sincere request. “You never know when you might need a Plan B. Trust me, kid.”

Ben glances down at it, and then back up at his father and their Wookiee friend. He exhales in resignation. “Fine. Alright. Give it to me,” he concedes. He plucks it carefully from Han’s fingers, and then stashes it in his inner jacket pocket.

Han leans in secretively. “There’s more where that came from.”

Ben groans and hurriedly strides away. “Yeah, no, we’re done here.”

* * *

Rey can hear the two Solo men arguing from all the way across the hangar.

She sighs wearily as she drags her feet against the concrete, dutifully ignoring the incessant squabbling streaming down from overhead.

Somewhere up there, on top of the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo is berating his son for being too rough with the ship’s repairs. “What are you doing?” he demands gruffly.

“What does it look like? I’m fixing her,” Ben retorts, dangling almost upside-down as he tinkers with the ship’s wires. “After the number you and Chewie did on her.”

“Would you rather we’d have let the coaxium blow us all out of the galaxy - _including_ the Falcon?”

“All I’m sayin’ is, if you let me fly her, we wouldn’t be having this problem.”

“Excuse me?” Han splutters. “Need I remind you of the countless times you’ve crashed my ship? Why do you think I never let you fly her?”

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now, does it? I’m takin’ her anyway.”

“No, stop! What do you think you’re doing? You don’t need that,” Han chides him. “She doesn’t need that.”

Ben scoffs sceptically. “I think I know what the Falcon needs.”

The spanner in Han’s hand collides against the Falcon with a loud _clank_. “Are you implying that you know my ship better than I do?”

“Well, she won’t be your ship for long,” Ben murmurs obliquely.

“She will be _my_ ship until I’m dead and cold in the ground!” Han proclaims. The final syllable comes out in a vicious growl.

“Calm...down!” Ben huffs. “So defensive!”

“Look what you’re doin’ to her. Stop. Enough!” Han curls a hand over his son’s shoulder and wrenches him upright. “Whatever you’re doin’, just stop. It’s not gonna work. We need a repair torch.”

“Well, I don’t have one,” Ben says offhandedly, crouching back over to examine the wires.

Down below, Rey heaves her large rucksack onto the luggage pile. Inwardly, she notes how thoroughly irritating two stubborn Solos can be.

“I might have left it down there,” Han mutters thoughtfully, peering down at his toolbox on the ground. “Hey, Rey!”

Ben freezes at the name.

Rey stops in her tracks, secretly wishing she’d scurried into the Falcon sooner.

Han points at the repair torch laying beside his toolbox. “Do you mind handing Ben that repair t-?”

Ben barely has the chance to raise his head before he has to quickly duck back down to avoid the chunk of metal that comes hurtling straight for his face. He fearfully lifts his head once more to catch a glimpse of Rey petulantly swooping into the Falcon and out of sight.

Han regards him with raised eyebrows. “Whew,” he exhales sharply with a cock of his head. “Whatever’s goin’ on between you two, you better sort it out.”

Ben grimaces as he summons the repair torch to his hand.

* * *

Inside the ship, Rey trudges moodily into the main hold to find Rose already seated there, alone on the lounge chairs.

She looks nervous, Rey notices, so she quickly abates her own temper - for her friend’s sake.

“Hey,” she calls softly.

Rose jerks her head up and hastily straightens. “Oh. Hi.”

“Nervous?” Rey asks, sliding into the seat beside her.

Rose blows out a long puff of air and nods. “A little. I’ve trained a lot, and practised a lot on codebreaking, but I’ve never been on a real, high-stakes mission before.”

“Yeah,” Rey chuckles. “This is the real thing. But trust me when I say that you would not be on this team if even one person thought you weren’t up to it.”

Rose smiles appreciatively. “Thanks.” Her hand instinctively clutches at the pendant hanging from her necklace.

Rey’s eyes flash down to it. “Paige would be so proud of you.”

Rose blinks back her tears. “I hope so.”

The other girl smiles, placing a comforting hand over hers.

“So,” Rose mentions lightly, “should I even ask what’s going on with you and...or...?”

Rey wrinkles her nose in distaste. “It’s nothing important,” she snaps with contempt. “It’s just... I hate him.”

“Al...right,” Rose returns slowly. “Just...try not to let it affect the mission, yeah?”

“I’ll be fine,” Rey states confidently. “He’s the one we’ll have to worry about. Reckless oaf.”

The approaching thuds of two sets of footsteps interrupts them. Both girls straighten in tandem as Finn and Ben appear from around the corner, bags packed and gear ready.

“Ready to go?” Finn pipes.

Rey glowers off to the side, unwilling to even glance in Ben’s general direction.

“Yup,” Rose confirms.

“Alright. Everyone in the cockpit,” Ben commands, not without trepidation.

“I’m good here,” Rey spits obstinately. In an act of sulky defiance, she crosses her arms over her chest and leans back in her seat.

Awkwardness burdens the room like a dense shadow.

“I...” Ben clears his throat. “I need a copilot.“

He’s not sure if she genuinely forgot the fact, or if she deliberately refused just so that he would have to outwardly verbalise it.

Regardless, she uncrosses her arms, springs out of her seat, and roughly shoves past him on her way to the cockpit.

This is going to be a long mission.

* * *

“Um, dumb question,” Rose peeps about five minutes into light speed. “But how are we planning on making it onto Starkiller Base without alerting their scanners?”

“A very graceful plan, brilliantly concocted by my father,” Ben answers.

“And that plan is?” Finn inquires.

Ben hesitates. “You wouldn’t like it if I told you.”

“Wow. Great,” Finn says sarcastically. “Lovely to hear.”

“We’re entering the atmosphere at light speed,” Rey deadpans.

The cockpit is silent for a few pronounced beats.

“Well, you were definitely right about that,” Finn finally speaks. “I don’t like it.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Ben asserts. “Time is limited. According to our sources, we have less than a day to make it across all three shield generators before the Hosnian System is within range of Starkiller. That’s where we’re countin’ on you, kid.” He nods indicatively at Finn.

“I know the rough location, but in terms of _access_ \- that’s another story,” Finn cautions.

“What do you mean, ‘access’?” Rey questions.

“Well, they’re not gonna make it easy, right?” Finn reasons. “They’ve anticipated this. They’ve built at least two of the shield stations in hard-to-reach areas. The second one we’re hitting is built into a cave on the edge of a mountainside cliff. The third one, I don’t even know what they did.”

“Certainly a lot smarter this time around,” Ben remarks. “Back during the Galactic Civil War, the Empire only had one easily accessible station on a nearby moon protecting the Death Star.”

“Endor,” Finn agreed. “And even that was an enormous feat.”

“What are the odds we’ll succeed today, then?” Rose mutters.

Ben smirks faintly to himself. “Never look at the odds.”

Beside him, Rey rolls her eyes, knowing precisely who he ripped that quote off from.

* * *

They manage to land without any casualties - although the Falcon does end up almost teetering on the edge of a snowy cliff.

The four all stumble out of the ship in various degrees of disorientation.

Ben steadies himself against the side of the Falcon, clutching at his own stomach in an attempt to keep his lunch down. “See?” he heaves against his sickness. “We made it. We’re good.”

“Your father is gonna kill you,” Finn mumbles dazedly as he marches past him.

“Hey,” Ben barks, levelling a finger at him. “No, he’s not. Because he’s not gonna find out about this. Because-”

The sound of Rose retching into the snow cuts him off.

He pinches his eyes shut and redirects all his focus towards not spewing.

Rey gulps down her own nausea and rushes to Rose’s side to hold her hair back.

Finn claps Ben amiably on the back. “Great start, Solo.”

* * *

Four young Resistance fighters crouch behind a large rock, peering at two First Order stormtroopers marching uniformly in the distance. They patiently watch the pair stride through the snowy plane, their figures crawling slowly across the horizon. Finally, the stormtroopers reach the base of a cliff wall, where they then suddenly - almost miraculously - disappear into the flat rock, as if phasing right through it.

“A secret door,” Finn says in a hushed whisper. “A hologram.”

“That’s our entry point,” Rose concludes.

Ben smirks giddily. “That’s pretty neat,” he laughs, his voice laced with delight. His eyes dart mischievously from side to side as he contemplates his next move. “Alright, you guys stay here. I’ll take care of this.”

“Wait, no, Solo!” Finn hisses, too little too late.

Ben launches himself off the snow and sprints ahead in blatant disregard of their protests. The others have no choice but to helplessly look on as he races across the distance in a straight beeline to the cliff wall.

“What is he doing?” Rose whispers.

“That idiot! He’s gonna blow this whole thing!” Rey growls, infuriated.

They see him pause in front of the entrance, all grumbling amongst themselves in displeasure. He tentatively extends an arm to the wall, cocking his head to the side in intrigue, and then jumps in.

He is almost immediately thrust back outside, landing butt-first into the snow.

Two stormtroopers materialise from the wall and loom over him.

“Oh no!” Rose gasps.

They all cringe as they watch him wrestle the stormtroopers off their feet, unearthing clump after clump of snow as they grapple for dominance.

“Are you kidding me?” Finn hisses in outrage. “That is insane. That is an insane amount of noise.”

“Somebody stop him!” Rey spits. “Shoot him, or something!”

“How is this not drawing more attention?” Rose wonders in bafflement.

“There are no cameras outside the compound,” Finn says.

“No cameras at the entrance? Where any reasonable person would think to put a camera?”

“I guess we’re lucky that whoever designed this place is even dumber than Solo.”

Rey slaps a palm to her face in embarrassment. She reluctantly peeks through the cracks in her fingers, _longing_ for the tousle to finally stop. “Is he still going?”

“Looks like it,” Rose replies. “He’s taken one of them down. Oh!”

“What?”

Finn shakes his head with a wince. “The other one just kicked him hard in the stomach.”

“What is he thinking? That psychotic moon jockey!”

Finn and Rose both hiss through their teeth as Ben flings the remaining stormtrooper against the wall, eliciting a noisy _bang_.

“What was that?” Rey inquires, still shielding the scuffle from view with her hand.

“He just smashed the second one against the wall,” Finn answers in deadpan. “It is a _miracle_ that he hasn’t drawn any attention yet.”

“That’s it,” Rose says. “It’s done.”

Rey hesitantly drops her hand to see Ben animatedly waving them over by the door. “I can’t take this anymore. I quit.”

Finn scoffs with a tinge of humour. “Come on,” he says, lugging her with him by the arm.

* * *

“Great job, genius,” Rey grouses when they reach him. “You almost screwed it up for all of us.”

“What? Didn’t you see that?” Ben says, breathless, panting, bleeding a little from the lip. He indicatively motions to the two incapacitated stormtroopers at his feet. “I kicked these guys’ asses.”

“And alerted the whole _kriffing_ planet to our presence while you were at it!”

“Alright, alright,” Finn interjects, redirecting them to the task at hand. “Game plan. Rose and I will dismantle the cameras and head straight for the control room. Rey and Ben, you guys take out as many First Order goons as possible.”

“Alright, sounds good,” Ben mumbles. “On the count of three, we all jump through together. One... Two... Th-”

He stops short when Rey unceremoniously leaps into the holographic wall in spite of his instruction.

The other two stare at him unsurely.

“Just...go,” he sighs, waving his hand dismissively.

One by one, they each hop inside, disappearing clean into the wall.

Ben squints as his eyes adjust to the sudden darkness, the details of the room gradually manifesting a silhouette at a time. “There are two doors. Which one do we go down?” he whispers.

“You two, left. We go right,” Finn states. “Rose?”

She steps forward and brings up her arm. Her fingers fly over the keys of the device strapped to her wrist, each tap so fleeting that her fingertips appear to barely scrape against the screen at all. After a few seconds of loading time, she strides up to the keypad in the centre of the room and inputs an access code.

Both doors in front of them fly open.

“Very nice, Rose!” Rey commends elatedly.

“Great work,” Finn concurs, squeezing her by the shoulder as he hurries forward.

Rey suddenly notices the faint tinge of a bashful pink staining Rose’s downturned cheeks. As the seeds of a particular suspicion are slowly planted in her mind, she accidentally meets Ben’s eyes while hers drift astray in contemplation. It abruptly cuts her off mid-thought, and she quickly resumes her petulant scowl as she huffily storms ahead of him.

“Make sure your comms are within reach,” Ben reminds them. “We’ll meet back outside this door.”

Rose and Finn nod concurrently.

“Remember: wait for the signal,” Finn whispers back.

* * *

Two pairs of rebels creep on their tiptoes down two different hallways. On the left, a Jedi and a pilot, with only a few weeks’ worth of baggage between them heavy enough to crush a Bantha on Tattooine. On the right, a mechanic and an ex-stormtrooper, shouldering their own notably lighter - but still rather complicated - issues.

Unbeknownst to anyone outside of the two of them, Rose had planted a half-conscious kiss on Finn’s lips after ramming into the side of his ski speeder and counterintuitively saving his life on Crait. Neither has spoken to the other about it since that day, making the air between them less than comfortable.

Rose almost squeaks in surprise when Finn promptly stops her by the arm, the warmth from the palm of his hand curled over her bicep seeping past her jacket and into her skin.

“Here,” he murmurs.

She nods, struggling to move past the proximity of his face to hers, and slips on her goggles.

He does the same, his expression as stern and serious as Luke Skywalker’s on any given day. “Alright. Start it.”

Rose plucks out a device from her belt and activates it.

* * *

Inside the control room, the surveillance camera footage on every screen falters for less than a single second. The First Order officers monitoring each screen blink through the brief intermission, some unsure that they’d seen it, some not even registering it past anything but their subconscious, and others not seeing it at all.

None, however, elect to do anything about it.

* * *

Finn and Rose each hold their breaths, waiting for any sign that their presence has been alerted to.

When no such alarm sounds, they grin at each other through the darkness.

“It worked. We seamlessly looped the camera footage,” Rose says. “Including the feed transmitted to the main base.”

“Through sheer luck,” Finn adds cynically.

“Sheer luck is all we have,” she mentions.

“Alright. Cut the power.”

* * *

Ben and Rey wait outside the door to a room packed to the brim with the enemy, crouched over on their haunches.

In the thick silence that befalls them, Ben wars with himself on what he should say to Rey, if anything. There are so many things that he could say in this moment - some of which he should say, some of which he wants to say, and all of which would most likely drive her to instantly attack him out of rage. His head swims with heady possibility, the predicted outcome of every route he could take somehow always eventuating in her inevitably hating him for it.

But given the direness of their circumstances, he has to say something. Anything. A better lie, or the truth. He has an unshakeable, irrational hunch that he may not get to say it to her today.

She stares straight ahead, ignoring him, the frown on her forehead tightly knitting her eyebrows together. Her eyes are determined, but her shallow breathing reveals she’s scared.

Her vulnerability emboldens him.

He inhales sharply. “Rey-”

The lights switch off. The world disappears around them.

Just like that, his window closes.

As if he never said anything at all, Rey fastens her night vision goggles to her face and leaps forward.

He pauses only momentarily before following suit, the phantom words of his imminent confession dissolving lamely on his tongue.

There is clamouring on the other side of the door. Ben can hear it, even before Rey slices it open with her lightsaber.

He’s familiar with this by now. Same tactic employed as the coaxium heist. In the dark, they are blind. Blinded, they panic. Panicked, they are reckless.

He and Rey have vision. They have the upper hand.

But when the two of them step inside through Rey’s makeshift opening to suddenly discover where they are, they, too, are caught off-guard.

Ben and Rey are in the control room. Which means Finn and Rose are in the other room, where First Order guards and stormtroopers are stationed at the ready for defensive battle.

They went down the wrong hallway.


	5. You always knew how to push my buttons

“Solo!” Finn screams into the comlink death-gripped in his hand as he and Rose duck for cover on either side of the door. “Solo! We’re in the wrong room!”

“No time to mess around!” crackles Ben’s voice through the comm. “Just get your asses over here while we clear it for you!”

Finn and Rose exchange fearful glances before pushing themselves off the walls.

“ _Ah_!” Rose shrieks when a blaster shot barely misses her shoulder. She slams back against the wall in shock.

Finn glowers and launches himself across the length of the open door, firing his own blaster madly into the room. He catches a glimpse of it striking only one stormtrooper in the leg. “Come on!” he shouts, sliding his fingers between Rose’s and determinedly leading her away.

* * *

It is utter carnage in the next room.

Ben eliminates adversary after adversary with his blaster while Rey slashes her way through the mob with her lightsaber.

Even through the dark, he can sense the viciousness in her attacks. So much violence. So much anger. Subconsciously, he wonders how Luke can excuse the intensity of her emotions and still deem her a “good” Jedi, but was somehow unable to ever accept that trait in him.

There’s one thing that Luke got absolutely right, however. Ben and Rey are a ruthless team - even when they themselves are butting heads.

Given all that they’ve been through, this small room of First Order lackeys is nowhere near a match for them, especially with the advantage of sight.

The last flog of Rey’s lightsaber is dealt on the sole remaining stormtrooper just as Finn and Rose come charging into the room. Rose skids only briefly before resuming her strides to the shield activator, while Finn doubles over and rests his hands on his knees, wheezing into his shoes.

“Coming... They’re coming...” he pants breathlessly. “Take cover. They have flashlights.”

“Cover her!” Ben shouts, gesturing to Rose. “Rey, you take that side of the room. I’ll-”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Rey snaps. In a heedless act of defiance, she disappears out the door.

Ben curses with mounting irritation. “Cover her,” he repeats to Finn, before trotting after Rey.

* * *

The thrum of an ignited lightsaber halts the leading stormtrooper in his tracks.

“Wait,” he orders, holding up a finger as his troops still over his shoulder.

A faint blue light slinks across the wall up ahead. The Jedi scum is coming around the corner.

“On my mark,” he whispers, and he hears the resounding clicks of his troops arming their blasters behind him. As soon as the luminescent tip of the lightsaber just barely sways into view, his command explodes from his lips in a hoarse, angry, “Fire!”

The horde of stormtroopers send a barrage of blasterfire at the blue beacon - their only indication of the enemy’s position. For a moment, nothing seems to happen, the orange hue of the continuous blasterfire merely drowning out the blue of the lightsaber. But then the orange seems to grow, glowing larger and brighter with every shot, and it’s not until their entire first line of troops is taken down that they realise their shots are being perfectly deflected.

“Stop!” the leader yells. “Cease firing!”

But he is struck on the thigh by a wandering shot, relegating him to his knees.

Rey calls her lightsaber back to her hand and rounds the corner with a ferocious battle cry, leaping far into the air and landing with a twirl that sweeps the immediate circumference of stormtroopers off their feet. She is merciless as she hacks down her prey, not only with her lightsaber but with her knees, feet, fists, and elbows, too. All those years spent fending for herself on Jakku would not go to waste. She is too wrathful, too emotional, too thoughtless to exercise what modicum of Jedi mindfulness she has left.

Ben almost trips over his own feet in his haste to round the corner. _What is she doing?_ he wonders to himself, frustrated. _Fighting in a narrow hallway? This is the most disadvantageous defensive position conceivable_.

He resorts to the only option he sees left. _Rey_ , he says, but not out loud.

His voice rings inside her head. She gasps, startled, and misses the fist of a stormtrooper brushing lightly against her cheek. Hot, sweltering fury rushes through her veins as she processes what just happened, and she thwacks the offending stormtrooper across his helmet with overwhelming force. “Get out of my head!” she growls through bared teeth.

 _Retreat_ _to_ _the_ _control_ _room_. _We_ _have_ _a_ _tactical_ _advantage_ _there_ , Ben persists.

“It’s too close to Rose! We need her safe to deactivate the shield generator!”

 _You’ll_ _get_ _yourself_ _killed!_

* * *

Only a short length down the hallway, Rose is fumbling with the myriad of coloured switches and buttons before her, anxious beads of sweat forming on her temples.

“Don’t you need power for this to work?” Finn breathes nervously, levelling a blaster at the open door.

“No,” she responds in a murmur. “Even without the main power, the shield generator continues to operate on a small reserve of backup power. But it’s too encrypted to be easily short-circuited like the main power.”

“Right,” Finn says. “That encryption... Is it more complex or less complex than the code to deactivate the shields?”

“To them, it’s not as crucial as the shield activator. So less,” Rose says. “Much less.”

“So...in that case...isn’t it easier to decrypt and cut the backup power than to deactivate the shield generator?”

Rose smiles. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

* * *

“Argh!” Rey roars as she is slashed across the bicep with a plasma dagger. With incensed vengeance, she knocks her offender down with a hefty kick to the abdomen.

 _There_ _are_ _too_ _many_ _of_ _them! Retreat_ _to_ _where_ _I_ _can_ _help_ _you!_ Ben urges.

Cussing begrudgingly, she swings, punches, and shoves her way out of the mass and sprints back down the hallway alongside him.

He takes down an impressive number of pursuers with the precise aim of his blaster - pointed behind him through the space beneath his armpit - as they run.

“Be useful for once and use your lightsaber!” Rey scoffs belligerently.

“Ain’t no match for a blaster, kid!” he returns.

* * *

 

“They’re coming,” Finn hisses. “How close?”

“I don’t know,” Rose whimpers. “I can’t... I mean, I haven’t gotten anywhere!” Her cadence rises with panic. “I think I finally got it, and then it turns out I’m wrong, and then I have to start all over again, and...”

He glances down to spot helpless tears rolling down her cheeks. “Hey.”

She sniffs and upturns her face to him, her expression crinkled with anguish.

“You can do it,” he tells her calmly. He brushes her tears away with the back of his hand. “You can do it, Rose.”

His tenderness reinvigorates her with self-confidence and she nods, straightening her posture with resolve. The pendant swinging from her necklace burns a determined heat into her skin. She can hear her sister’s voice, wrapped around the same words.

 _You_ _can_ _do_ _it_.

* * *

Ben and Rey come flying into the room. They situate themselves on either side of the door, using the walls as cover.

“Guys, take cover!” Ben shouts.

Finn falls to his knees and drags Rose down to do the same by the hand, concealing them both behind a control desk. “Can you still reach?”

“Yes,” she affirms.

Rey extends an arm to a metal crate across the room and slings it down the hall towards the first few emerging stormtroopers. Its solid weight instantly incapacitates them with a discordant _clang_.

Ben pulls out a bulky machine blaster strapped to his back and cocks it. “Stand back.”

Rey hesitates, but acquiesces, staggering backwards a few steps.

Pinching one eye shut, Ben aims and fires.

The machine blaster sprays a sheet of blasterfire at the wall of approaching stormtroopers, easily knocking them downlike ants drowning under rain. If Ben had a sadistic side, he would have found it satisfying. Cleansing.

Finn and Rey stand by with slack jaws as they watch him obliterate them line by line.

“Reloading!” he suddenly shouts, prompting Rey back into action.

She quickly flings another crate at the remaining stormtroopers, but it only takes out a couple, her aim materially more sloppy this time.

“Rose,” Finn says.

“I got it,” Rose reveals, grunting with effort. “Almost.”

“You do?”

“Hold them off as long as you can.”

Inspired, Finn turns back around and spritzes a few of his own well-aimed shots at the enemy.

“Get back!” Ben calls, as a way of announcing his readiness.

Rey and Finn cover their ears as he recommences his ruthless assault on the rapidly dwindling number of stormtroopers outside.

Rose’s fingertips are slick with sweat. She cries out in fright and ducks when a blaster shot hits the wall only a few feet above her head. Summoning all of her courage, she boldly lifts her head back up and resumes her work. “Almost...there...” she mouths to herself.

“Come on,” Ben groans, unleashing the last of his ammo on the handful of surviving stormtroopers. “Dammit!” He tosses the empty machine blaster over his shoulder, the advancing stormtroopers much too close now for any reload time.

Rey snarls and lurches forward with her lightsaber ignited, bounding right into the fray.

“Screw it,” Ben mutters, joining her.

“Finn,” Rose barks.

“Yeah?” Finn chokes.

“Remember this for me. Six-five-A-C-three-K-M.”

“U-Uh,” he stammers with madly fluttering eyelids. “Six...five...”

“A-C.”

“A-C...three... Three.”

“K-M.”

“K-M. Six-five...A-C...three-K-M.” He chants it to himself under his breath in repetitive earnest. “Six-five-A-C-three-K-M. Six-five-A-C-three-K-M.”

“What was it?” Rose prompts.

“Six-five-A-C-three-K-M!” he answers.

Within the next heartbeat, the remaining light in the room completely extinguishes.

 _She_ _did_ _it_ , Finn realises. _She_ _disabled_ _the_ _first_ _shield_ _generator_.

* * *

Meanwhile, Rey and Ben have managed to drive the small group of stormtroopers back out of the room, mowing them down one by one.

“Use your lightsaber!” Rey demands in a frustrated growl. “All you’re good for right now is hiding!”

Ben grits his teeth together in aggravation but finally relents. He stuffs his hand blaster into its holster and unsheathes his lightsaber with a climactic whir.

The stormtroopers almost still in surprise.

“What the-?” one gasps in recognition. “That’s Ben Solo!”

Ignoring the theatrical proclamation, Ben lunges at them with a weighty brandish of his weapon and rams it into the ground. The act sends them flying backwards, a mixture of thermal energy and Ben’s unbending will of the Force.

Despite her qualms, Rey finds herself once again impressed by the sheer strength and power of Ben’s fighting style. Every motion, every flourish of his lightsaber carries so much weight, as if he is swinging a giant hammer made of stone. It almost makes her wince to see his weapon strike a target, like she expects it to completely shatter them or send them flying an unrealistic distance down the hallway.

She doesn’t need to assist. She merely stands and watches him finish off the remaining adversaries, admiring the unique rawness of his powerful attacks.

When he removes his lightsaber from the final stormtrooper with a savage grunt, he turns to look at her across the distance. “Thanks for the help,” he pants sarcastically.

She opens her mouth to spit out a snarky retort, but only gasps when a figure suddenly emerges from the darkness behind Ben and seizes him by the neck.

Ben freezes when he feels the cool metal of a blaster barrel being pressed against his temple.

“Don’t move,” the First Order officer warns them. “I don’t have to say why.”

Rey stares at him wordlessly and impassively.

Ben’s heart races in his chest. He’s afraid. Genuinely afraid that she does not care for his life. That she will do something rash. Something that could kill him.

Why should she care, after all? She hates him. And she has good reason to.

But he’d very much like to live, and all he feels in this moment is fear, so he begs her. He begs her through the Force. _Please_.

The blaster slides against his temple and brushes past his hair. The First Order officer behind him jerks forward in surprise, pushing Ben onto his knees.

Rey catches the blaster across the distance with ease and fires it expeditiously at the enemy, hitting him directly in the chest and sending him toppling backwards.

The hallway falls silent.

* * *

Finn and Rose come bounding out of the control room.

“She did it!” Finn breathes joyously. “Rose deactivated the first shield generator!”

Rey slows her breathing and readjusts her stunned gaze at Ben into a nasty scowl. “Good,” she says tersely, before spinning on her heel and marching off.

Ben takes a bit longer to gather his bearings.

He felt it. Her recklessness. She barely even thought before she acted just then, during the standoff that could have easily ended his life. He felt the way she relied on pure instinct, nothing more, to impetuously snatch the loaded blaster pressed firmly into his temple.

She really didn’t care.

His hands ball into fists, white knuckles protruding under taut skin.

It isn’t just that. She’s been like this ever since they left. Careless. Rash. Blatantly disobeying his orders, specifically to spite him. Never mind that she doesn’t care about him. She doesn’t even care about the mission.

Infuriated, he chases her.

* * *

The beginnings of a blizzard start to form outside. Cutting winds. Foggy distances. Snow up to their shins. Something they did not plan for.

“Rey!” Ben shouts. It is not a call. It is an order. “Stop!” The harsh winds carry his voice adrift, though the girl would have continued stomping forwards regardless.

He shoves his way back into her head. _Get_ _back_ _here_ now.

She freezes, more enraged than shocked.

The brief pause is all he needs to trudge the remaining distance to confront her, whirling her around to face him with an aggressive wrench of her arm.

“I told you to get out of my-”

“What was that back there?” he demands, callously interrupting her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“What?” she snaps back.

“Are you crazy? That was utterly reckless, foolish, outright disrespectful-”

“I _saved_ you,” she spits, outraged. “You’re welcome!”

“You have been nothing but arrogant and thoughtless this entire mission,” he chastises. “Directly disobeying orders, going rogue a countless number of inappropriate times, and endangering not only yourself, but the entire team, all because you’re too immature to set aside your personal problems!”

Rey glances over his shoulder at Finn and Rose, who silently stand by and watch at a distance. A pang of guilt pricks her in the chest, but her pride quashes it. “Who do you think you are?” she snarls. “You think I should be taking orders from you?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” he quips. “I am the leader of this team.”

“You are nothing!” she explodes. “You’re a nobody who joined the Resistance, like, three days ago!”

“You have no idea who I am.”

“I know you’re not Han Solo, that’s for sure!” she challenges. “As much as you’re trying to be!”

His jaw drops in dismay, a disconcerted scowl carving itself into his forehead.

“You will never be even _half_ the man your father is,” she hisses.

“I was absolutely right,” he says. “You are nothing but liability.”

She suppresses a grimace at the sting of his words. “I suppose you were. Guess you should’ve taken _Catyra_ on this mission instead.”

His scowl deepens. “Cat?” he says. “What does Cat have anything to do with this?”

“Oh, so she’s ‘Cat’, now?” Rey splutters, unable to restrain the childish jealousy seeping into her tone.

“Is this what this is about?” he says incredulously. “Wow, you are just... _so_ juvenile! How can you call yourself a Jedi?”

Her eyes begin to moisten with barely inhibited emotion.

“You know what, Rey?” he shouts at her. “Sometimes, you know, you don’t always get what you want in life. And that’s just the way it is. You need to grow up and realise that.”

All she sees in his gaze is venom and distaste. No longer is there a detectable trace of sadness, or disgrace, or remorse. He is well and truly done with her now.

It’s too cold outside to feel the tears trickling down her cheeks. The wind seems to whip them away as soon as they emerge.

“Stop letting your issues affect the mission,” he tells her, his voice as icy as the snowflakes lashing against her face.

When facing him becomes too much, she turns and dashes away, stumbling through the thick snow around her knees.

Ben watches grimly as Rose hurries after her, the wavy locks of his hair flailing madly in the wind. He flinches when Finn’s hand closes over his shoulder and startles him.

“Solo. The blizzard,” he says.

Ben twists around and surveys their surroundings, seemingly absorbing them for the first time. “We don’t have time to lose. Let’s grab a snowspeeder and get as far as we can.”

“We do have the shelters,” Finn agrees. He stares at the two girls huddling together in the distance. “I’ll go get ‘em.”

“Thanks,” Ben murmurs.


	6. See your face, hear my voice in the dark

With such little planning time, Ben and Finn had to rely on the assumption that there would be some form of transport at the first shield station.

Thankfully, it wasn’t misplaced. Only one snowspeeder is parked on the premises, but fortunately with just enough capacity to house all four of them.

“Brand new design,” Finn comments, running a gloved hand over the trunk. “Power conservative. It’s not the flying type. Only glides a short height above the snow.”

“Dammit,” Ben curses. His fist lands on the side of the speeder with a frustrated bang. “This ain’t gonna get us far.”

“It’ll have to do,” Finn decides. “We’ve got no choice.”

“Haven’t been a lot of those handed around on this mission,” Ben remarks. “Alright. I’ll drive. Everyone climb in. It’ll be a squeeze.”

He notices Rey immediately heading for the back seat as soon as he volunteers to drive.

* * *

They’re behind schedule. Ben knows this. It’s why he pushes on for so long - as long as possible - even against his team’s advice.

“Ben, it’s starting to get unbearable,” Rose says bluntly. “The blizzard’s getting insane. Our speeder will get snowed in if we keep going.”

“Our speeder will get snowed in if we park it,” Ben argues.

“Not if we cover it,” she counters. “We have the equipment.”

“Covering it won’t do anything.”

“It won’t get snowed in at the recharge stations,” Finn mentions. “There’s shelter there.”

“We could get caught at a recharge station.”

“Out here? At this time? Who else would have the mind to go out in the middle of a blizzard?”

“Besides, I don’t think this speeder’s got much juice left,” Rose adds.

Ben’s grip tightens on the yoke. “Fine.”

* * *

They barely make it. The speeder practically stutters to a stop as Ben parks it on the port inside the station, as if expending its very last reserve of power before shutting off.

For this reason, he cops a bit of resentment from his team. He can feel it emanating off of each of them in waves. He can’t blame them; even he admits that he tested the limits too liberally.

The station proves to be a worthy respite from the storm, providing perfectly sealed shelter from the biting wind and a tinge of insulated warmth against the bone-chilling cold. There is a small, rickety heat lamp in the centre of the room, radiating weak, feeble rays of thermal energy, around which they all nestle up to closely for a lack of anything better to rely on. Food and water reserves here have long been spent, so they resort to the bland, unfulfilling canned porridge they’d hastily packed for the trip, back when sustenance seemed to be the least of their worries.

“While we wait out the storm, we might as well get some rest,” Finn suggests, breaking a long, weary silence. “I can take first watch. I’m not that tired.”

“I don’t sleep,” Rey speaks up.

Ben throws a disinterested glance in her direction, too exasperated with her in general to particularly care.

“I’ll take the entire watch,” she says.

“Rey,” Finn chides. “You know I’m not gonna let you do that.”

She says nothing for a while, numbly shovelling some tepid porridge into her mouth. “I’ll take first watch. When you’re ready to take over, let me know.” She drops her bowl onto the ground in front of her with a careless thunk, almost spilling some of its contents in the process. “I’m full. Someone can have the rest of mine.”

Ben shuts his eyes in annoyance as she stands and leaves. Her footsteps rake at his eardrums as she pads her way outside, each step more irritating than the last, culminating in a slam of the door that makes him cringe.

* * *

Rey glowers moodily off into the foggy distance, already shivering under her giant parka. Her eyes trace the landscape, but they might as well have been ambushed right then and there, for she is far too emotional and distracted to really even see anything.

The door creaks open beside her, but she doesn’t turn to greet her company. Her heart leaps at the possibility of it being Ben, but when she hears another voice, her shoulders instantly relax.

“You know, you can keep watch from inside. There are windows,” Finn jokes.

She rolls her eyes at him faintly. “I needed some air.”

“This kinda air?” he quips, grimacing at the thousand tiny needles of cold wind figuratively pricking at his cheeks.

A small bubble of laughter rises in her chest, but pops before it reaches her lips.

She hears him sigh next to her.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Solo, and I don’t need to know,” he says. “But whatever it is, you’ll get through it. I know you. You’re strong.”

The side of her mouth twitches downwards. “Waiting all those years on Jakku,” she murmurs. “You know what the worst part was?”

He fixes his eyes on her.

“It wasn’t the baseless hope, or the unending passage of time, or the sinking, aching feeling of loneliness,” she says. “It happened after I stopped waiting. When I realised they’d never come back. It was the wondering. The not knowing why. The endless questions about what was wrong with me, or what made me so unlovable, or not worth staying for.”

“Rey.”

“I’m starting to see that maybe I’m the problem,” she whimpers. She clasps her hands over her mouth when she can no longer contain the sob.

“I can tell you with absolute certainty that you are worth it,” Finn tells her vehemently. His icy fingers, so numb from the cold, manage to find hers. “Otherwise I would’ve never come back for you on that First Order base. You are so worth it to me.”

She finally chances a look at him, though embarrassed by her tears.

“And you know if anyone - anyone - wants to make you feel like you’re not,” he continues, “I’ll destroy them. Even if they are some powerful Force-user with a fancy bloodline.”

She impulsively yanks him in for a hug, circling her arms around his neck in an airtight embrace. “You promise?” she mumbles softly. “You promise you’ll beat him up and make him cry?”

He smiles. “I promise.”

* * *

Ben is too anxious to sleep. He broods in the corner of the room, carving graffiti into the steel wall and determinedly keeping Rey from his line of sight.

She is sitting on a large stool at the window, her knees pulled up to her chest, gazing listlessly outside.

The others are fast asleep, though Rose does stir uneasily at regular intervals. Ironically, Finn appears to be the most peaceful, despite being the first to volunteer to not sleep, snoring lightly into his arm and scarcely moving at all since his head hit the pillow.

Ben fidgets with the golden dice dangling from his neck, turning it meditatively in his fingers. Rey’s prior words echo vaguely in his mind, the mere memory of them almost vexing enough to make him tear the dice from his necklace and fling them across the room in a temper tantrum. His fingers close tightly around them, the hard metal creating indents in his skin.

“Ben.”

His eyes snap up at the sound of his name. He whips his head around, madly scanning the room.

Rose and Finn are sound asleep, and Rey still has her face turned steadfastly to the window. Nobody has moved.

“Ben.”

He gasps and jumps to his feet, heartbeat pounding in his ears. “Who said that?” he demands, flicking his head back and forth like a madman.

To his alarm, nobody in the room seems to react to his exclamation, despite it coming out in a frightened yelp.

“Ben Solo,” the voice continues. It’s a soft, lilting whisper, calling him. Beckoning him. “My worthy apprentice.”

He staggers a step forward.

“Son of darkness,” it croons.

“Who’s...?” he mumbles dazedly, shuffling closer towards the door.

“Heir apparent...”

He raises a trembling hand to the doorknob, turning to look at Rey.

She stares blankly ahead, unfazed.

“...to Lord Vader,” the voice concludes.

With a shaky breath, he swings it open.

A deafening screech brings him to his knees. His own screams blend in with the high-pitched shriek as he clutches at fistfuls of his hair, wincing helplessly against the excruciating pain. Currents of searing electricity ripple through his veins, making him writhe in powerless agony.

“You think you can hide from me?”

The pain stops. He gasps at the ground, jaw shuddering in distress.

He knows that voice. He recognises it.

Slowly, painfully, he lifts his head, his eyes tracing the figure before him from the bottom up. There stands Snoke, as ghastly and horrifying as he remembered, the same creepy leer twisting his grisly, deformed face.

“Pathetic child,” he sneers. “I cannot be forsaken. I see your mind. I see your every intent.”

Ben chokes out a sob, utterly impotent at the monster’s feet.

Snoke reaches out a wizened hand and gently strokes away a tear under Ben’s left eye. “You know your place is by my side. You are not Han Solo. You are-”

“No.”

“The new Vader.”

“No!”

“Finish what your grandfather started, and fulfil...your...destiny!”

Ben releases an ear splitting scream as the world begins to spin around him. Pain surges through his limbs once again, so intense that he can hardly even feel his own hands as they grasp at tufts of his hair.

Suddenly, the pain disappears, returning sensation to his body. His scream tapers off into fearful whimpering when he realises that he is now standing, no longer at the door of a recharge station on Starkiller Base, but inside one of the grand halls of Varykino, his grandmother’s Naboo estate. He blinks hard as his vision adjusts to the blurry figure in front of him, kneeling at his feet.

He sees her eyes first. “Rey?”

She blinks back at him, astonished, as if surprised to find herself there with him.

His arm does not feel like his own. It raises, of its own accord, the hilt of his unlit lightsaber to Rey’s chest.

Her eyes widen in reaction. She is inexplicably frozen to the spot.

Snoke’s grating voice reverberates around them. “Yes,” he moans pleasurably. “I see him turning the lightsaber to strike true.”

Ben’s breathing quickens as he watches his own hand follow suit.

“Ben,” Rey weeps.

“And now, foolish child,” Snoke continues, “he ignites it, and _kills_ his true enemy!”

They both scream at the crackling red of Ben’s lightsaber.

* * *

Ben jerks awake, wheezing for air and grasping at the wall.

He’s back inside the recharge station, sitting upright against the corner, the soft glow of the heat lamp dimly illuminating the room. He struggles to recollect himself, his clothes damp with a cold sweat, his neck sore from a tensed slumber, and his throat dry from mad panting.

_A nightmare?_ he wonders, wildly scouring his surroundings.

And then he meets Rey’s eyes, all the way across the room - those pained, shocked, _knowing_  eyes - and they tell him all that he needs to know.

It wasn’t just a nightmare.

“The storm.”

Rose’s voice makes them both jump.

“It stopped,” she says, completely oblivious.

She’s sitting at the other window, and peering out through the crack in the blinds. She shoots a wry smile at Rey, who only blinks back at her, still stunned. “So much for taking the entire watch. For someone who ‘doesn’t sleep’, you sure clocked out pretty quickly.”

Rey drops her jaw. “I-I...” she stammers weakly.

“It’s alright,” Rose chuckles. “I haven’t been up long.”

“The storm stopped?” Ben inquires, clambering onto his feet.

“Yeah.”

“Then we need to go,” he states. “We don’t have a second to waste. Wake Finn. I’ll go warm up the speeder.”

“B-Ben,” Rey stutters feebly as he strides past her.

He doesn’t stop.

“What’s going on? Are we leaving?” Finn asks through a yawn, groggily pushing himself up onto his elbows.

“Yeah. The blizzard’s stopped,” Rose replies.

Rey frowns after Ben concernedly.

“How long has it been?” Finn wonders.

“Only a couple hours. It was a short one.”

“Where’s the next station?” Rey questions.

“Another hour or so by speeder,” Finn answers. “It won’t be much longer.”

“Then let’s go,” Rey urges impatiently. “The sooner we get off this planet, the better.”


	7. This mad, mad love makes you come rushing

Much to Ben’s displeasure, Rey opts for the front seat this time.

Not only that, but she spends the entirety of the ride carefully scrutinising him, hardly ever removing her probing eyes from the side of his rigid face.

He determinedly ignores her, however, proving to be a perfect match in stubbornness.

“Up ahead,” Finn announces, directing a finger at a jagged cliffside in the distance. “That’s where it is.”

“Come again?” Rey says. “All I see are rocks.”

“Exactly,” Finn affirms. “I told you the second one is tough.”

“I didn’t know we’d have to be literally climbing rocks to get there,” Rey mutters in displeasure. “There’s barely even a ledge to get through.”

“Didn’t you learn how to climb in Jedi training?” Ben asks - the first thing he’s said to her in hours.

She casts a glance at him. “No, in fact, I learned on Jakku.”

“Then it should be a piece of cake,” he returns, before sharply manoeuvring their vehicle behind a tall rock.

“I still don’t enjoy it,” she grouses. “We’re stopping here?”

“Do you see any other cover up ahead?” he retorts. “That narrow path alongside those boulders is all we got to make it up there undetected.”

“It’ll take a half hour. At least.”

Ben merely shrugs as he hops out of the speeder. “Better than getting caught, sweetheart.”

* * *

“What do you see?”

Finn partially ignores Ben’s inquiry as he adjusts the zoom on his binoculars. “It looks clear to me. Empty on both sides.”

“The both sides of what?” Ben asks.

“The canyon.”

“The canyon?” he echoes. “There’s a canyon?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“Let me see that,” Ben demands, reaching for the binoculars.

Finn absentmindedly swats his hand away. “I see a door. Built into the cliffside. It must be housing the shield station inside.”

“A door?” Ben says. He snarls at the other man in annoyance. “Let...me...see!”

“Wait! I wanna... Argh!”

“Will you guys stop?” Rose hisses chidingly as the two begin to grapple over the binoculars like spoilt children. “You’re gonna give us away with that ruckus!” She snatches the binoculars from right under their noses and takes a gander herself. “Finn’s right. There’s a door on the left cliffside of the canyon. I see a trail leading up to it.” She casually hands the binoculars to Rey.

“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Rey concurs. “It’s rocky, but there’s definitely a ledge up there and some rough steps. We can make the climb.”

“So am I ever gonna get a turn with the binoculars?” Ben complains.

Rey shoves them into his hands with an irritated scowl. “Our best shot is to climb up that cliff as stealthily as possible,” she goes on. “Then, once we make it inside, we can go about our usual routine. Lights off, comms cut, dancing in the dark.”

“Good news, by the way, is that this station only has one room,” Finn pipes up. “So we won’t find ourselves in the wrong place. There’s only one.”

“Well, great. Should be a piece of cake, now!” Rose drawls sardonically.

The three of them all sigh. They turn to Ben when all he does is peer through the binoculars wordlessly.

He frowns. “I don’t see anything.”

“Ugh, come on!” Rey scoffs, seizing them from his hands.

* * *

The four of them all huddle together behind the nearest boulder at the base of the trail.

“Alright, Rose, Finn, you guys go first so Rey and I can cover you if things go awry,” Ben says.

“I’ll go first,” Finn volunteers. “I can at least fight them off if they come at us from the front.”

Rose scowls vaguely at that. “I can handle myself.”

“Really? Have you ever shot... _anyone_?” Finn teases.

She pouts. “In the simulations, I have.”

“Enough flirting,” Ben interrupts. “It’s making Rey uncomfortable.”

Rey raises her eyebrows. “I’m completely fine with-”

“See? She’s a wreck. Go.” He gives Finn an encouraging nudge forwards.

Finn rolls his eyes, murmurs, “Who’s flirting?” under his breath, and then ploughs ahead.

The onset of the climb is shaky at best, with Rose’s and Finn’s inexperience and lack of dexterity getting them off to a rather slow and clunky start. They second-guess every step they take, continually searching and doubting the next stable span of rock to shift their weight onto. Finn ensures a steady grip on the wall before each step, and Rose practically hunkers down into a squat, too dubious about her own balance to maintain another inch of height.

Despite fully empathising with their friends’ hardship, Rey and Ben can’t help but exchange a look of incredulity. Rey twists around with her feet resting nimbly on two serrated stones to widen her eyes at an extremely complacent Ben, who is leaning casually against the jagged wall. Funnily enough, they never realised how valuable their Jedi training had been until this moment.

“Whoa!” Rose cries, stumbling on a rickety stone.

Rey calmly steadies her by a handful of her cloak. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Rose wheezes, evidently flustered. “These steps are wobbly.”

“Yeah,” Rey murmurs lamely.

Ben stops her with a tap on the shoulder. “Wanna make this fun?” he whispers.

She casts an irritated frown at him. “We’re on a mission.”

“Dare you to make this entire climb with no hands.”

Despite herself, that piques her interest. She angles her head towards him slightly. “That’s what I’ve been doing this entire time.”

“No arms, either,” he says. “No holding out your arms for balance.”

She narrows her eyes at him.

He locks his hands behind his back. “Just legs.”

A smirk slowly curls across her lips. She wrinkles her nose at him. “You’re on.”

And so they play their little game, deftly hopping from stone to craggy stone with their arms fixed behind them. There’s some shakiness, sure, but the two prove to be seasoned climbers, with the convenient assistance of the Force as an add-on. When Rey starts to look like she’s getting too cocky - arrogantly wiggling her eyebrows one too many times at him - Ben lightly kicks her from behind by the heel, just to ruffle her a bit. She stumbles but quickly regains her footing, spinning around to shoot an outraged gape at him.

“You rat!” she shrieks, though her voice tremors with stifled laughter. As an act of pure, reckless spite, she unearths the stone beneath his right foot with an indelicate tug of the Force.

It completely catches him off guard. He teeters perilously over the ledge, so close to toppling that Rey has to regretfully wrench him back upright by the arm.

They goggle at each other in shock.

“Oh, my...” Rey breathes. “I am so sor-”

“You lose,” Ben cuts her off with an impish smile. “You used your hands.”

She sputters at him. “To save you!”

“To try and kill me,” he clarifies, mimicking the stretch of her hand to the rock.

She scoffs. “Don’t start a fight you can’t finish. _Weakling_.”

“What the hell is going on back there?” Finn shouts from up ahead.

Rey and Ben jerk back into attention.

Amidst their childish antics, they actually managed to fall behind the other half of their team by a significant breadth.

“Come on!” Rose calls. “We’re nearly there!”

“Sorry!” Rey calls back. “We got caught on some-”

The smash of a blaster bolt into the rock - mere inches away from her head - cuts her off.

They only get two seconds to react. Then the fusillade begins.

Ben reflexively seizes Rey by the waist and slams her up against the wall. A small alcove in the cliffside is the only cover they get. He presses her into it with his body, shielding her from the unrelenting blitz.

For Finn and Rose, their only cover is a measly boulder on the edge of the cliff, which they are forced to duck behind. Finn crams Rose between his arms and the hard, jagged rock beneath them.

“Shit!” Ben hisses, his breath hot in Rey’s ear. “There were stormtroopers stationed across the canyon!”

Rey’s heart thumps frenetically in her chest. So many variables. Ben, fiercely holding her, shielding her, protecting her, the instinctive act itself an admission of his feelings for her. The barrage of unanticipated blasterfire, ruthless, unending, trapping them to almost certain doom. Finn and Rose, somewhere up there, unseen, unheard, possibly already dead. She can feel the same energy pulsing from Ben’s body - the heat, the Force, the panic. He’s clinging onto her, desperate, needy, his confidence wavering.

Then, suddenly, a thundering boom. The rock beneath them begins to quake, and then jolts violently from side to side.

Rey can’t help it. The terror overflows from her body in the form of a scream. “What is happening?”

Ben lowers to a squat and forces her down with him, cocooning her firmly in his arms. “They blasted us with plasma rockets!”

The rock rumbles turbulently as it begins to shift backwards. Somewhere up there, the ledge has been split in half, with both fragments gradually shuddering apart.

Rey snaps when she realises that Finn and Rose might not have made it. She opens her eyes, which had been pinched fearfully shut since Ben secured her against the wall, and stares at the rock inches from her nose. Suddenly, she can sense the Force flowing through her like a viscous current, her limbs positively buzzing with its potent energy.

She feels it. The stormtroopers are all lined along the cliff across the canyon. Their positioning is disadvantageous; they’re huddled much too closely together. There’s a large rock above their heads, jutting precariously out of the cliffside. It would crush them all.

With a hand on his chest, she pushes Ben back and wriggles out of his arms. No time is wasted as she promptly rises to her feet, extends an arm to the other side of the canyon, and wrenches the Force to her will with a vehement clench of her fist. Concurrently, the overhead rock is dismantled, plummets down the cliffside, and wipes out the entire ledge of stormtroopers with a deafening, merciless crash.

The last blaster bolt strikes the cliff wall beside them, and then there’s silence.

Ben staggers to his feet and gawks at the carnage Rey left behind with only the pull of her fist. Subconsciously, he wonders how he was ever so stupid as to purposely vex this girl. “Damn,” he breathes, inwardly terrified.

Rey turns to face him, eyes wide, lips apart, looking just as astounded by her own power as he is.

She opens her mouth to say something, but the rock at their feet explodes with a smattering of blaster shots, startling them back into cover. One surviving stormtrooper remains, tenaciously firing at them from across the canyon.

Ben whips out his own blaster and expeditiously fires it in his direction. Two shots are all he needs. They hit him square in the chest, indisposing him instantly.

Ben releases a heavy sigh, arm flopping exhaustedly back down to his side. “Are you okay?” he murmurs numbly, turning to Rey.

She nods dazedly. “Yeah.” She tears her eyes away from him, forcing herself back into a state of semi-composure, and gazes up at the other half of the broken ledge.

There’s a sizeable gap between them now, made significant not only by width, but by height. There is no way they would be able to cross it.

“Finn!” she cries distraughtly, her hands cupped around her mouth. “Rose!”

When only silence follows, she begins to hyperventilate.

Ben frantically fishes out a comlink from his pocket. “Guys!” he yells into it. “Do you copy? Finn! Rose!”

A pause.

The crackle of static rams the hope back into their bodies.

“Yes,” Finn’s voice weakly responds.

Rey releases a sob of relief and buries herself into Ben’s chest.

“Thank God,” Ben sighs with a euphoric groan. “Are you okay?”

“We’re alright!” Rose replies. “What happened?”

“Rey pretty much took out their entire patrol with one hand,” Ben says, not without a proud grin. He throws an affectionate arm around her, hugging her closely to him.

She beams. “Yeah, thanks for the help, you guys.”

“Guys, listen,” Ben speaks, “the cliff’s been sawed in half. We can’t make it across. What do we do?”

“Head to the next shield station!” Finn answers. “It’s only a few minutes away. Rose and I’ll take care of this one.”

“Are you sure?”

“We don’t have time. That patrol across the canyon probably alerted the entire planet to our presence before they started the attack. We need to cut our losses and eliminate these shields as quickly as possible.”

“But how do we disable the shield without Rose?” Rey asks.

“Find a way to destroy it!”

Ben’s eyes visibly light up at the suggestion. “Yes, got it!”

Rey peers up at him questioningly, but he only rubs an assuring hand up and down her back in response.

“We’ll meet you guys back here when we’re done! Try and find a place to lay low once you get out!” Ben shouts into the comm. His voice lowers as he meets Rey’s eyes. “Good luck.”

“May the Force be with you,” Rey bids.

“May the Force be with you,” Rose returns.

Ben slides his fingers through Rey’s. “Come on.”

Hand-in-hand, they charge back down the cliff.

* * *

Stormtroopers start to materialise from seemingly out of nowhere on their way back to the snowspeeder.

Ben and Rey sprint madly through the snow, miraculously evading the heavy spray of blaster bolts at their feet. Rey almost trips over herself as she skids to a halt in front of the speeder before hastily jumping in. Ben, on the other hand, gracefully slides across the surface of its hood and rolls into the driver’s seat.

With a concerning sputter, the speeder reels forward under Ben’s hand. The momentum sends the snow shooting upwards in a brilliant eruption of white behind them.

Rey clutches tightly onto the interior of the speeder as Ben steers it haphazardly through the snow. The engine bellows with effort in his endeavour to propel it to maximum speed.

Her eyes scarcely register the scenery as it whizzes past. She turns to face Ben, surveying his profile - the focussed snarl of his bare teeth, the harsh furrow of his eyebrows. Her gaze slides down to his knuckles, tensed and white in a death grip on the steering wheel.

His name spills from her lips like water from an overflowing dam. “Ben.”

He shoots her a feverish glance. “Yeah?”

She swallows. “You’re the first person I ever met who truly understands me.”

He glances at her again, more lingering this time.

Heat inundates her face and ears, thawing the chill of the icy wind against her skin. When he offers no immediate response, the chagrin begins to set in. There she goes again. Putting herself out there, only to be humiliatingly rejected. Why does she do this to herself?

But then he speaks, startling her. “You’re the first person I ever met who made me feel like I wasn’t alone.”

Her heart squeezes painfully. It’s a strange, new feeling, being flooded by both immense joy and devastating sorrow at the same time. It’s agonising, and she hates it, but at the same time she revels in it; she loves it.

“Up ahead,” he says, wrenching her out of her trance. “Do you see it?”

She blinks a few times to regain focus. “Yes,” she chokes.

The shield generator. It’s different to the others. It sits atop a small building on flat snow - huge, concave, right out there in the open. The sheer size of it makes it visible from miles away, like a radar-shaped mountain on the horizon.

Ben really floors it.

Once again, Rey’s hands find a grip on the inside of the speeder as it jolts forward with newfound thrust.

“It looks empty,” she mentions with surprise as they draw nearer. “Maybe they haven’t been notified yet.”

Ben says nothing, but squints suspiciously at the building up ahead.

They’re quickly closing in, now, mere seconds away from arriving at their destination.

But they never reach it.

Legions of stormtroopers pop up from the roof of the building and commence their assault.

Ben stomps a heavy foot on the brakes and veers their speeder into an abrupt one-eighty. He cusses as several blaster bolts clip off the side of the vehicle.

Rey screams and ducks her head between her knees, clutching onto her seat for dear life.

Spotting a nearby boulder large enough for cover, Ben takes a sharp right and makes a beeline directly for it. At the very last second, a blaster bolt strikes the wheel only inches away from his hand, sending them into a tailspin. They manage to make it behind the boulder, but their speeder careens precariously and crashes right into it in the process.

In the aftermath, Ben groans weakly and cradles the side of his face. He can feel a hot, thick stream of blood dribbling down his hand. The trauma to his head blurs his vision and dizzies his mind, and he has to groggily reach out and feel for Rey’s body to hazily discern if she’s badly hurt.

Her voice starts to break through the foggy wall of his concussion.

“Ben... Ben... Ben!”

His senses return to him all at once, like a stab of adrenaline right to the heart. He gasps, frightened, disoriented, whipping his head back and forth in alarm.

Suddenly, Rey is standing beside him on his side of the speeder, grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket, and dragging him out onto the snow.

He braces himself against the stone, blinking hard as he steadily recovers.

She crouches down next to him, desperately searching his expression for answers. “Ben, there’s too many of them! What do we do?”

He pants as he smears away the trickle of blood down his face with his sleeve. Slowly, unhurriedly, he reaches into a small, secure compartment on his belt, and winces as his limbs sear with pain at the movement.

She watches him carefully pluck out a glowing, red vial and hold it out to her in the palm of his hand. Her breath hitches in her throat. “Is that what I think it is?”

His eyes are weary, but his lips convey a hint of a smile. “Yeah,” he mouths, nodding.

She suppresses the rebuke on the tip of her tongue. “How...? How did you get that?”

“My dad gave it to me,” he tells her. “He figured we might need it on this mission.” He laughs feebly. “I thought he was crazy. But he was right. The old man is smart.” He sobers as he meets her eyes, the severity of their next move weighing down on them. “You throw. I shoot.”

She casts a nervous, fleeting glance down at the coaxium. “I’ll need to use the Force.”

“Me too.”

She gulps fretfully.

“Aim for the radar,” he instructs. “Good chance it’ll blow up the entire building, but even if it doesn’t, at least we’ll know it will have taken out the shield.”

She nods compliantly. “Okay,” she mumbles.

He keeps his eyes trained on hers as he places the vial into her palm and closes her fingers over it. “On the count of three, alright?” he says, pulling out his blaster.

She gnaws on her lip and nods again.

“One...” he begins.

Her breathing quickens.

“Two...”

She can hear her heartbeat in her ears.

“Three!”

Rey springs to her feet, lashing out an arm at the sky. Blasterfire engulfs her surroundings, but she does not see it, her stare fixed on the tiny vial soaring through the air. It flies up above the roof, zips past the line of stormtroopers, hurtles towards the shield transmitter...

And then Ben stands, aims his blaster, and fires it in a precise trajectory ahead.

It hits the vial dead-on.

Bullseye.

A blazing inferno erupts from the radar. It blasts the enemy, envelops the building, and sends Ben and Rey soaring backwards.

They’re out like a light as soon as they hit the snow.


	8. I miss you too much to be mad anymore

He stirs. The infinitesimal movement stings his left cheek. It is pressed into the ground, shrivelled pores scraping against the rough surface of the icy snow. The bitter chill of it simultaneously numbs and bites at his skin.

His head throbs profusely as he struggles to lift it, dull pangs repetitively drumming into the top of his skull at a rapid tempo. Vision and hearing alike gradually return to him, like water slowly clearing from his eyes and his ears.

He twitches woodenly as sensation is restored to his body. First the fingers, rigid with cold, then arms, legs, feet, and knees - all he really needs to heave himself upright, blurry eyes dizzily scanning his surroundings, or the few feet of radius that his hazy vision can even reach.

She’s a shapeless form on the ground when he spots her, limp and lifeless about a couple of yards away.

Panic grips him by the lungs, choking him, making him cough into the snow. He lurches forward, hacking raucously, the mere thought of her possible demise enough to nearly debilitate him. Weak with both injury and distress, he can only throw himself over her, senseless fingers feebly gripping at and shaking her by the shoulder.

“Rey,” he wheezes distraughtly. “ _Rey_!”

She shudders, signalling her survival.

The relief is so heavy that it slumps him against her body.

“What...?” she breathes, taking a much shorter length of time to regain her bearings. She twists her body upright, contorting against his weight, and gapes around herself. “Oh, Ben, we did it! I can’t believe it! We actually... Ben, we... Ben?”

It is her turn to shake his limp body, lines of concern creasing her forehead.

He pinches his eyes shut as he pushes himself up onto his elbows, waves of pain rushing through his limbs. “I’m alright,” he grunts, rather unconvincingly.

“Can you stand?”

“I...” He forgoes a verbal answer by awkwardly clambering onto his hands, knees, and then, very slowly, his feet, long groans of effort rumbling in his throat.

She stands up next to him, supporting him, watching him, neurotic hands continuously migrating from arms to shoulders to chest and back again.

He fixes his gaze on the remains of the decimated building in front of them, ebbing flames giving way to black, ashen ruins. “We did it,” he says, repeating her prior words.

She nods. “We did.” A serene smile settles itself onto her lips. She catches him staring at her in her periphery, and she turns to meet his eyes.

The grin he gives her - the one she thought he’d given another woman, but now that she sees it, she is _certain_ is reserved only for her - makes her cave.

She throws herself at him so violently that it almost knocks him right back off his feet. Her arms encircle his torso, fitting snugly beneath his underarms.

The embrace is not like the first time they hugged back on D’Qar, which was stiff, and awkward, and restrained. This time, he reciprocates it in passionate earnest, squeezing her back so tightly that it stops her lungs from breathing.

Ben presses a long, fierce kiss to her shoulder. Too much has happened, too much has changed, for him to deny himself another moment’s liberation. As he removes his lips from her clothes, he tips his head back to face the sky, eyes half open in a rosy trance.

That’s when he sees it. A shape. It materialises in the sky. Blemishing it, staining it like a dark, nasty ink blot on perfectly white paper.

The blood leaves his face, quickly replaced by a slack, pallid expression of dread and fear.

Triangular. Black. Looming. It calls him. Beckons him.

She feels him palpably stiffen against her.

He only holds her in place when she attempts to pull back to examine him, his gaze locked on the shape in the sky.

Something changes in him at that moment, an epiphany that alters him completely. What he’d seen in his sleep was not a mere dream. It was the Force, telling him something. The vitality in his eyes dies as it occurs to him, sapping him of what little reserve of hope or faith or optimism he had left.

“Ben?” she mumbles. “Ben, what’s wr-?”

“We need to go,” he says, before she can articulate the question he wants to avoid. He pulls back, and flashes her an affectionate smile.

The skepticism in her eyes vanishes when he tenderly strokes both thumbs over her cheeks, his fingers curling on either side of her neck.

“We need to get off this planet while we still can,” he continues.

“Let’s take one of those snowspeeders and go find Finn and Rose,” Rey proposes, gesturing to a line of parked vehicles to her right. “I noticed them before. They’re airborne, so it’ll be a lot faster to get back to the Falcon.”

“Nice,” he agrees.

She beams at him, and then makes for the speeders.

“Wait,” he stops her. “The dice.”

“What?” she asks.

“My dice. The golden dice. I can’t find them,” he says, scowling, feeling himself up and down. “I must have dropped them somewhere.”

“You’re never gonna find them in this wreckage!” she exclaims.

His eyes madly trace their surroundings. “I... I can’t... I can’t leave them here,” he murmurs. “I have to look for them. I have to try.”

“Wait! Ben!” she shouts incredulously, grasping him by the hand as he begins to back away. “Don’t be stupid!”

He plants a kiss to her knuckles and then twists his fingers out of her grip. “Two minutes!” he yells, galloping back towards the rubble. “Warm up the speeder!”

“Bu-!” she protests in vain. She watches him disappear behind a blackened heap and cusses angrily with an infuriated stomp into the snow. “Laser-brained idiot!”

She almost trips over herself sprinting over to the speeders, her feet sinking cumbersomely into the thick, dense snow. With cold, clumsy fingers, she reaches in from the side and powers up the ignition. The vehicle roars to life, the triumphant peal of its engine rippling through the frosty air.

As she hastily climbs into the driver’s seat, she suddenly notices an abnormal weight on the hollow of her neck. Small and hard, lightly knocking against her skin. Her hand flies up to grab it, and then she figures it out before she even has to look.

She gulps.

Cube-shaped. Metal.

The sound of another engine - much louder, much hotter, much more booming - thunders in the distance.

Rey whirls around just as a TIE fighter shoots into the sky, tracing a wide arc over her head. She follows its trajectory, her heart wrenching with anxiety in her chest, until her gaze finally lands on the dark shadow in the sky - the one Ben had seen, but deliberately concealed from her.

She blanches when she realises who is in it.

Hovering far above the surface, and just out of reach of the Starkiller atmosphere, is the tiny, undeniable shape of Supreme Leader Snoke’s ship.

“No,” she chokes out, hot tears of betrayal already stinging her eyes. “Ben!” She scrambles out of the speeder and topples front-first into the snow, shrieking and gasping with wretched grief.

The TIE fighter persists on its path into space, quickly shrinking into an invisible dot in the sky.

“ _Ben_!”

* * *

Her breath is loud in her ears. Gasps of desperation and distress, punctuated by the violent, rapid beat of a panicked heart.

She spots them: two small, limping figures huddled together, like specks on a white slate. With an aggressive lurch, she veers the speeder to the left and dives it headfirst into the snow.

Finn and Rose shield themselves from the flurry of snow that explodes upon landing. They can hardly make out Rey as she tumbles out of the speeder, her limbs spilling onto the snow like molten lava.

“Rey-”

“He’s gone,” Rey spits, cutting Finn off completely. “Ben’s gone. He took one of the TIE fighters and flew up there to confront Snoke.”

“W-What?” Finn splutters. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know!” Rey shrieks as she paces hysterically. “We blew up the station, I went to steal a snowspeeder... Next thing I know, he’s gone!”

Finn steadies her with a firm hand on the shoulder.

She stills under his touch, like a madly spinning fan that’s been jammed with a screwdriver.

“Rey. We need to get back to the Falcon,” he states.

“Yes, you’re right!” Rey exclaims. “Let’s get back to the Falcon. Then we can go after Ben. You can help me copilot - it won’t be that hard to-”

“Rey!”

His authoritative growl silences her.

Rey’s eyes seem to return to focus for the first time since she landed. The radius of her bouncing gaze gradually narrows, until, finally, it settles on the two people in front of her. She sees the way they’re standing. Finn, supporting Rose’s weight on one shoulder. Rose, wincing, slumping limply against Finn’s side.

“She’s hurt,” Finn says, the proclamation coming out in a thick, garbled sob.

Rey gasps when she spots the gnarly blaster wound on Rose’s thigh. Judging by the size, it‘s not from any ordinary hand blaster.

“We completed the mission. Now take us home,” Finn beseeches. “Please.”

She sees it. The look in his eye. It’s the same look she hated seeing in Ben when he’d agonised over her own pain.

Finn’s in love. And far be it for her to deny her best friend love.

“Alright,” she breathes, nodding in rapid fervour. “Alright. Let’s go.”

* * *

“Rey,” Finn says, urgently bounding into the cockpit with a comlink tightly grasped in one hand. “It’s the General.”

“General Organa,” Rey chimes.

“Where have you been?” the General demands on the other side of the line. “We’ve been trying to reach you for almost an entire day.”

“We’ve been a little preoccupied!” Rey replies, somewhat defensively. “But we are off the planet now. All three shield generators have been destroyed. You may commence the assault!”

“Now, _that_ is wonderful news!” the General exclaims. “All units deploy! Starkiller is set to fire at the Hosnian System in less than an hour!”

“An hour?” Rey echoes breathlessly.

“It’s charging,” Finn says, directing a finger out the viewport. “Look.”

Rey flings herself at the dashboard and madly scans their surroundings.

She spots it. The most harrowing sight of her life. A giant star, burning bright and true, being sucked in a steady vortex into the planet from which they just escaped. It’s simply unnatural. When the power of an entire sun can be literally harnessed into a condensed super weapon, that’s an unequivocal indicator that the war has gone too far.

“Rey, Finn, Rose, Ben, you have ten minutes to get back to the Raddus!” General Organa commands. “Great job, everyone. Your work here is done.”

“Th-There’s another thing, General,” Rey mentions.

She meets Finn’s eye. He rapidly shakes his head, knowing exactly what it is that she wants to say.

Rey hesitates, her mouth ajar in a mute stutter.

“What is it, Rey?” the General urges.

Finn releases the speaker toggle on the comm. “She is heading this entire operation. I don’t think she needs to worry about her son right now.”

Rey’s eyes gleam with unshed tears.

“That’s a problem for Skywalker,” he says. Seeing the comprehension in her gaze, he holds the comlink back up to her lips.

“N-Nothing, General,” she blurts, eyes gravely trained on the colossal silhouette of the Supremacy in the distance. “We’ll see you back on the Raddus.”

“Excellent. See you soon,” General Organa responds, none the wiser.

Finn gives Rey’s hand a comforting squeeze when she yields to her tears. “Come on,” he says, “let’s get back to the Resistance. Let’s get back home.”

_Home_. It’s what the Resistance had been to the both of them for a long time. Little did Rey know, that definition would change entirely when she met Ben Solo.

“Alright,” Rey sighs, reaching up a hand to input the hyperspace coordinates.

But her fingers only fumble incoherently against the keypad.

Blasterfire crashes into the side of their ship, sending them reeling.

Rey steadies herself against the head of her seat, while Finn staggers right into the wall.

“What the hell was that?” Finn groans painfully.

Rey scowls at the wailing proximity alert. “We’re being attacked!”

Two TIE fighters whizz past them in perfectly symmetrical synchronisation, before swivelling back around for another onslaught of blasterfire.

“Finn, quick! Punch in the coordinates for the Raddus while I try to lose these guys!” Rey instructs.

“I-I don’t know how! How?”

“What do you mean? It’s so simple!”

“I don’t know anything about ships!”

“Argh!” she growls as she narrowly evades a heavy stream of attacks. “Take over!”

“Take over?” he splutters. “What makes you think-?”

He doesn’t get to finish his protest, for Rey ignores him and blatantly releases the yoke, sending the Falcon into freefall.

“Okay! Okay!” he shouts, squeezing past her and clambering into the seat.

The Falcon veers unsteadily from side to side under Finn’s inexperienced piloting, but it’s a surprisingly effective evasion tactic against the TIE fighters’ assault. Unfortunately, it’s not as well suited to Rey’s task on the hyperspace controls, which requires a certain degree of steadiness.

“Finn!” she shrieks in frustration.

“Alright!” he yields.

Three seconds of fluke balance is all she needs. Her fingertips fly over the keypad at a pace that appears to rival light speed itself. “Okay, punch it!” she shouts.

She shifts her stare from the windshield down to a befuddled Finn - his hands hovering uncertainly over the controls - when the blackness of space does not melt away. “Oh, for-!”

Rey pushes him aside, seizes the hyperspace lever, and thrusts it forward. Within the next blink of an eye, they’re gone.

* * *

Three out of the four members of the Starkiller strike team make it back onto the Raddus. One is barely conscious, heavily supported on either side by the other two. Another is numb with misery, eyes blank and lifeless as she gazes vacantly down at her feet. All three sport the bleakest of expressions, despite returning victorious from their mission.

Poe Dameron, Han Solo, and Chewbacca are there to greet them on the landing pad.

“Guys! You made it!” Poe exclaims.

“Poe, she’s hurt,” Finn says tearily.

“Oh, no. Let’s get her to the medical bay. Quick, Chewie!”

Chewie roars amenably and effortlessly lifts Rose off her feet as if she were featherweight. Poe and Finn march fretfully on either side as he carries her off the landing pad.

Rey lingers behind with Han.

“What happened?” Han questions grimly.

“We destroyed all three shield stations,” Rey answers flatly. “Some complications along the way.”

Han peers searchingly over her shoulder at the empty Falcon ramp, before a golden glint on the hollow of her chest catches his eye. He gulps. “Where’s Ben?”

Rey’s face hardens in dread. She can’t even begin to explain to Han what his son could be doing, for she hasn’t a clue of it herself.

_But_ _not_ _for_ _long_ , she decides.

She wants answers.

* * *

Rey barges into Luke’s room.

He is seated on the edge of his bed, serene, meditative.

Once upon a time, she would have admired his capacity to remain so peaceful in times of such turmoil. Today, however, she is indignant at the fact.

“I need to ask you something,” she states. Her voice is thick, but icy.

His eyes remain shut, and he is silent for a while - long enough for her to wonder if he even heard her speak at all. “Rey,” he finally says, a slight upturn in his intonation, as if surprised to find her there. “How was the mission?”

“Master,” she deadpans. “Your nephew stole a TIE fighter on Starkiller Base and went to confront Supreme Leader Snoke by himself.”

Luke slowly opens his eyes, but otherwise does not react.

“He could be killed,” she continues desperately.

“Yes,” Luke replies. The flatness in his tone deeply infuriates her.

“We need to go after him,” she asserts. “Help him. Assemble a team of Jedi. We need to defeat Snoke once and for all.”

“Snoke is much more dangerous than you think,” Luke warns. “He is not a feral beast, whom you can just slay and slaughter - rather, his attacks are silent. Undetectable.”

“We can’t just let Ben die up there on the Supremacy!” she screeches. “Not all by himself!”

“We cannot surmise his future,” he counters. “But we can discern that it is his choice to face Snoke alone.”

“Why would he do something like this?” Rey demands, appearing almost petulant, her cheeks wet and her mouth miserably downturned.

“I suppose he feels he is done hiding,” Luke answers.

Rey swallows thickly as she processes the thought. “Hiding,” she echoes. “As he has been doing from Snoke all his life.”

“Yes,” Luke affirms.

She braces herself as she feels the next question bubbling up her throat. “Master,” she says, “why did Ben always feel as if he was abandoned by his family?”

Luke stares back at her impassively.

“I need to know,” she tells him.

“Why?”

“Because I need to know if I can still respect you as a Master,” she confesses.

The harsh weight of her words clouds the room like dense, suffocating fog.

Luke’s eyes narrow infinitesimally. If Rey had blinked, she would’ve missed it. “You wish to know the story of why Ben was estranged from his family when you found him.”

“Yes.”

“You wish to know why he resented us so, and if it was warranted.”

“Yes.”

“You wish to understand the motives behind his actions, which, to you, have appeared so erratic, so frustrating, so contradictory.”

“Yes.”

Luke finally breaks his expressionless facade and exhales a weary sigh. “Then I will tell you.”


	9. You say it’s in the past and drive straight ahead

“When Ben Solo was first conceived,” Luke Skywalker begins, “we were all elated.”

A Jedi Master and his faithful Knight sit facing each other across the room - he at the foot of his bed and she on a stool against the wall. She is bent forward with her elbows on her thighs, focussed, enthralled, listening intently. Her eyes gleam with desperate, unrestrained curiosity.

“Han was a little apprehensive, of course, but he was noticeably lighter after the announcement,” Luke continues. “He was overjoyed, deep down, and we all knew it.”

* * *

_30 Years Ago_

Luke found Han and Leia on the balcony outside, clinging onto each other, heads bent together in perfect symmetry. He smiled. Ever since they’d discovered the pregnancy, they were inseparable - even at their own baby shower.

“Leia,” Luke spoke, guilty about interrupting them at such an intimate moment.

His sister twisted around in her husband’s arms, eyebrows raised in expectation. She beamed at the sight of him. “Luke.”

“Some...senator or other is looking for you. She ran off before I could even get her name,” he relayed, a little whiny with irritation.

Her smile widened fondly. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll go find her.” She drifted serenely past him and back into the house, so lightly and gracefully that it seemed as if she were gliding on air. Though she was only a couple of months pregnant, and was nowhere near showing, she tenderly cradled her abdomen in one hand as she moved. Even this early on, her child was precious to her.

Luke turned his grin to Han, who somewhat awkwardly smirked back. “It’s really happening.”

Han blew out a nervous puff of air. “Yeah,” he sighed. “It’s...frightening.”

“Han Solo,” Luke laughed as he joined his friend by the balustrade. “You? Afraid?”

“Hey, I get scared,” Han said defensively. “I’m not invincible.”

“What do you have to be scared of?” Luke teased.

Han pressed his lips together in a vulnerable pout and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Of messin’ it up.”

“How could you possibly mess it up?”

“I don’t know. But it’s just intimidating, you know? A kid. A tiny thing that you need to feed and nurture and help grow. And any little thing that you do could screw it up for life. Who knows what the right thing to do is?”

“Nobody,” Luke said. “Nobody really knows. We can only do our best.” He smiled as he wistfully gazed up at the sky. “The same philosophy applies to being a Jedi. There’s Light, and there’s Dark, but the line between them often blurs. All you can really do when you’re in the Grey is what you think is best.”

“But there are consequences,” Han mentioned. “Big ones. What if the kid turns out bad? What if it ends up hating me?”

“You’ll just have to come to terms with the fact that you’re not perfect. Not everything you do will be right, but that’s not your fault. Nobody can raise the perfect kid.”

“I just gotta protect him,” Han decided. “From whatever. I just gotta make sure he’s safe. That’s the best I can do.”

Luke chuckled. “‘He’? What makes you so sure it’s a boy?”

Han smirked again. “Just a feelin’ I got.”

“Well, if he’s anything like his dad,” Luke said, “he’ll turn out just fine.”

* * *

_Present_ _Day_

“Leia was more beautiful than we’d ever seen her,” Luke recalls. “The pregnancy invigorated her. She was simply glowing with peace, with happiness, with warmth. She loved her son the moment she felt him exist. She bonded with him. Could feel his energy. The way she talked about it - there wasn’t a doubt in my mind. Ben would be Force-sensitive.

“I couldn’t be happier. Another Skywalker to carry on my legacy. To carry on Leia’s and Han’s legacies. To nurture, and train, and watch flourish. I fantasised endlessly about the great Jedi he would grow up to become.

“But Leia could sense something. A volatility in him. Before he was even born, there were tremors of darkness. She confided in me close to her due date, but we elected to ultimately ignore it. Little did we know, Ben Solo was being targeted before he’d even left the womb.”

“By Snoke,” Rey deduces.

Luke nods grimly. “Yes. By Snoke.”

* * *

_29_ _Years_ _Ago_

Leia’s voice was crackly through the phone. The reception was poor, making it already hard to hear her without her also spitting every word out in a shrill, panicked whisper.

“Leia,” Luke rasped, still groggy from sleep. It must have been an unfathomable hour, because even the droids had gone into hibernation. “Slow down. I can’t hear anything you’re saying.”

“It was a dream,” she sputtered. “But it didn’t feel like just a dream. I heard a voice, but it wasn’t talking to me. I don’t... I don’t know...” The rest of her words were unintelligible.

“A vision?” Luke hypothesised. “Could it be a Force vision? What exactly did you see? What did the voice say?” He scowled deeply in concentration as he attempted to discern her response and failed. “Leia, please, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I feel something,” she divulged. “I don’t know what it is. I can only describe it as darkness. I think it has something to do with my dream.”

“Darkness?”

“Luke, I’m scared. I’m worried about my son.”

“Tell me what you saw in the dream.”

All he could hear following his request was a series of distraught sighs and sobs.

“Leia?” he prompted.

He waited a very long time before she stopped hyperventilating, feeling utterly useless as he merely sat and listened on the other side of the phone. Eventually, her breathing slowed, her pants quietened, and her voice lowered to a reasonable frequency.

“Okay,” she huffed. “I’m okay. It’s probably nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she asserted. “Now that I’ve gotten a chance to clear my head, I realise I was overreacting. It was just a nightmare. A really harrowing one.”

“Do you want to talk more about it?” he pressed.

“No,” she said. “It was just a dream. I dreamt that my son was an agent of the Dark Side. It just frightened me. He is still with me, so he is safe. I have nothing to be worried about.”

“Yes,” Luke agreed. “You are still bearing him, Leia. There is no way your son - your and Han’s son - is already Dark.”

“I know. You’re right.” She breathed and sighed heavily a few more times. “I’m sorry I called you so late. I just didn’t know what to do. It felt like something a Jedi should know the answer to.”

“Well, this Jedi’s diagnosis is that you need to get more sleep, or your nightmares will get worse.”

At the sound of her melodic laughter, he was immediately at ease.

“Thank you, Luke. When my son is born, you will be his mentor.”

“Leia, I will do anything to protect Ben from evil. You have my word on that.”

* * *

_Present_ _Day_

“We didn’t know,” Luke says. “How could we? Even the boy himself couldn’t possibly figure out what was going on. Most of it happened in his subconscious, when he was asleep. When he began to exhibit Dark Side tendencies, all we could do was try our best to prevent it.

“We feared it. That is the key word. Fear. But it wasn’t Ben we feared. It was for his livelihood. His innocence. His Light. We feared it so intensely because it seemed as if he had a natural inclination for darkness, borne out of absolutely nothing. When you fear something that much, you become desperate. You don’t think.

“His emotions were always so extreme. Especially during his teenage years. A normal teenager was irritable, moody. Ben was just angry. His anger was almost insatiable, to the point where we no longer recognised him, or remembered what he was like calm. Han was afraid. So was Leia. Their fear was not lost on him, but it was misinterpreted. He thought they feared _him_.

“They sent him to live with me at my Jedi temple. I trained him, alongside a class of students, for many years. I coached him. I tried to guide him in the right direction the best way I knew how: as his Jedi Master.”

* * *

_15 Years Ago_

“ _Ben_ ,” Luke snapped.

It came out as a bark, an order. It froze every Padawan in the room.

Even the Padawan standing across the way, with his lightsaber alight and his dark eyes searing with uninhibited fury.

Cowering at his feet was a blonde, lean, human boy his age. Tears stained his face as he sobbed and choked in fear.

Ben Solo slowly lifted his gaze from the snivelling child before him to his uncle, jaw locked in a cold rage. He contemplated his next move, whether it to be to drop the lightsaber and launch his foot into the boy’s stomach, or to forget everything and ruthlessly slash him across the chest.

It wouldn’t kill him, surely. But it would gift him with a permanent reminder of Ben Solo’s unforgiving wrath.

_Never mess with me again, or I’ll do worse to you than this scar._

“That’s _enough_ ,” Luke growled. He was livid. Eyes bulging, nostrils flaring. “Step away from Jaren _now_.”

Ben hesitated for much too long.

“ _Ben_!” Luke roared.

“Fine!” Ben hollered back, retreating from his victim. He glared maliciously at Jaren as he sulkily sheathed his lightsaber and shoved it back into his belt.

“No,” Luke spoke.

Ben glanced up at him from his feet. “No what?”

“No, you don’t get to keep that.”

He turned his scowl to Luke. “ _What_?”

“Your weapon,” Luke clarified icily. “Give it to me.”

An irate fire seethed turbulently in Ben’s eyes. He didn’t say anything, both out of shock and unbearably immense anger.

“You can no longer have it,” Luke declared. “For you do not know how to use it for good.” He stretched out a stern hand. “Give it to me.”

Ben’s fingers clenched so tightly around the lightsaber that it might have snapped in half.

The other students watched anxiously on as the altercation in front of them unfolded.

“Ben, now.”

The lightsaber came flying at Luke’s head at an astronomical speed. He was barely able to catch it before it could strike him right across the forehead.

Appalled at what had just happened, he was unable to regain his bearings until his nephew had already stormed off in a mad sprint out of the temple.

* * *

_Present_ _Day_

“Yes, I was hard on him,” Luke admits. “But he was getting harder to deal with by the day, and in turn, I more desperate.

“I thought it was just his nature to be so belligerent. And maybe it was. But it was made all the worse by Snoke, secretly whispering fears and resentments in his ear the entire time. It was difficult to distinguish between what was Ben and what was Snoke’s influence back then. Now, with the advantage of hindsight, it is easier. Ben has retained much of his fiery nature, but that anger, that deep-rooted resentment and distrust - that has been alleviated.

“There were so many factors. He, too, was scared. Scared of what was happening to him. Scared of himself. Scared of being seen as a monster. Han, Leia, and I... We all realise now that it was a number of things that made it worse. It was Leia sending him away, making him feel abandoned. It was me being too strict on him, making him hate me in his irrational, adolescent years. It was his father becoming progressively less close to him as his own fear festered like an ugly weed. That last part was particularly hard on him, for Han had been his idol for such a large portion of his childhood. He felt more betrayed by Han than anyone.

“But at the time, when we found out about Snoke, that was it. It was the only factor we saw. We didn’t have the mind to reflect on the flaws of our own actions. So we chose to eliminate it.”

Rey feels numb as she silently listens. Pang after pang of sadness, sympathy, and guilt, and she now finds herself a husk of second-hand pain.

Loneliness. She had seen it in his eyes before. But she never thought that, having been born into an esteemed, loving family, his loneliness could have ever rivalled hers - wandering the sands of Jakku in fruitless waiting for most of her childhood years. Somehow, it does.

“How did you try to eliminate it?” she asks.

That’s when she sees his expression shift. It simply slumps with remorse, something she’s never before seen on her master’s face.

“We explained it to him,” Luke continues. “We told him everything. We didn’t have a choice.”

“A choice in what?” Rey presses.

“In sending him into solitude,” Luke reveals.

Rey’s lips part as a sick intuition writhes in her chest. “Solitude?”

“Did you ever wonder why nobody really knew that General Organa had a son until his bounty was announced?” Luke says. “It’s because he was supposed to be dead.”

Her breath hitches in her throat. “What?”

“We faked it,” Luke tells her. “When the First Order rose, and the war had just begun, we told the world that Leia Organa’s and Han Solo’s son had died. And then we sent him to live out the rest of the war in solitude at Varykino, my mother’s estate on Naboo.”

“Why?” Rey demands incredulously. “To shield him from Snoke?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s just cruel!”

“We saw no other choice,” Luke defends. “Snoke was reaching out to him in his sleep. The only way for him to be completely free of Snoke’s influence would be for Snoke to think he was dead.”

“But Snoke would be able to feel it if Ben died,” Rey mentions. “Through the Force.”

“We thought of that,” Luke agrees.

“Which is why...you taught Ben to close himself off from the Force at will,” she realises. “He shut himself off from the Force...for years. How could he possibly agree to something like that?”

“He was surprisingly amenable to it,” Luke says. “Of course, eventually, he reopened himself to the Force, alerting Snoke to his survival and spurring the whole bounty mess. He still hasn’t told us why, so we can only speculate on that. But at the start, he had no qualms with our reasoning. I think he was just as tired as we were. Just as confused. Just as desperate. He wanted an answer to all of this, just as much as we did, and when we all found it, he must have been relieved. Finally, a reason for his suffering. A scapegoat. It wasn’t him, or his parents, or me. It was Snoke. He, too, wanted to be free. Even if it meant severing his connection with the Force.”

So he did know physical loneliness. Even with a family, and parents who loved him, Ben was alone. For years. In fact, it is clear to Rey that even before he was essentially quarantined to Varykino, he’d been alone for a long time.

“We visited him a lot initially. He was agreeable at first,” Luke goes on. “We brought him food, games, equipment. He busied himself by finding things to do around the estate, like rowing, or hunting, or fishing. Menial things like that.

“But it didn’t last long. Inevitably, he got restless. We visited him less and less as the war became more and more severe. Every time we visited, he would ask us: ‘How much longer?’ And we’d give him the same response: ‘We don’t know.’

“It was like purgatory. His anger quickly returned. But it was a different anger this time. Not so explosive, or tempestuous. It was a silent anger. A genuine resentment that built up gradually over time, and which he harboured for a long, long while. He began to reflect on his life. On his actions, and ours. And he realised it before we did. It wasn’t just Snoke who drove him to Varykino. It was all of us, including himself.

“He was an adult man by this point, and could fend for himself. Bringing him food and supplies during our visits was only a formality, not a necessity. When he realised this, he requested we stop coming.”

“And did you?”

Luke is quiet for a pronounced pause. “We were busy with the war.”

“I can’t believe you,” Rey hisses spitefully. “That’s your nephew. General Organa, Han, that’s your son. Han... How could you abandon him like that?”

“The war was never meant to persist for this long,” Luke says. “But Ben would be at Snoke’s side, fighting us on behalf of the First Order, if we’d let it go any further. You and he could have been mortal enemies. Who knows what havoc a Force-wielder that powerful could wreak on the galaxy if he’d fallen to the Dark Side? We never intended-”

“But you let it happen anyway,” Rey snarls. “All because of what? Your duty to the galaxy?”

“This is what you must understand, Rey,” Luke lectures, “if you want to become a Jedi Master. Sometimes, you must put the greater good before your personal attachments.”

“The greater good?” Rey repeats in a scoff. “And who’s to dictate what that even is? What if you’d never sent Ben away into solitude? Do you know that he would’ve turned to the Dark Side?”

“No, but-”

“No! You don’t!” she insists. “You don’t know that! You don’t know what would’ve happened if you’d never sent Ben away!”

“At such a volatile, crucial point in his life, it was not worth the risk,” Luke states evenly. “I, too, was hot-headed and emotional as a young man. But I didn’t realise I was wrong to be so until I aged. Rey, a Jedi can never be emotional.”

“So you just let people suffer?” she confronts. “As long as it’s for the greater good? Is that why you refuse to go up there and save Ben? Is that why you’re willing to let him die?”

“He must face Snoke alone. I have foreseen it. Anyone who seeks to interfere will merely be squashed like an ant by Snoke’s hand.”

“The future is fluid,” Rey says. “What you have seen is not absolute.”

“It may be misinterpreted,” Luke corrects, “but it is absolute.” He leans forward with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together earnestly. “Rey, you know where you should be. Your friends need you here. The Resistance is facing some tremendous odds out there; they could use a gifted warrior such as yourself during these dire times.”

She glowers at him, displeased.

“Search the Force. Feel it. Let it help you realise the truth,” he urges. “You must let go of your earthly attachments. It is why Ben left you out there on Starkiller Base to go by himself. He knows it, too. I reminded him of it.”

Her eyes narrow at him. “What do you mean, you reminded him?”

Luke blinks back, unfazed. “When you two were brought back to the base on Crait, Ben wasn’t unconscious for long. After being patched up with Bacta, he immediately demanded to see you and locked himself inside your room. There wasn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind. That boy had fallen in love with you.”

Rey’s heart leaps with euphoria. Hearing those words of affirmation, after spending these past few days achingly despairing over it, is simply cathartic. “He loves me?” she whimpers.

“Yes,” Luke says. “So I reminded him.”

The frown returns to Rey’s eyebrows.

“It could never be,” he explains. “You are a Jedi. A Jedi cannot fall in love. My father fell in love, and it was his love for my mother that was ultimately his downfall.”

“You _what_?” Rey demands, the second syllable coming out in an outraged hiss.

“That is why his demeanour has changed around you,” Luke says. “Don’t you see? He knows it too.”

She barely hears him. Her mind is clouded by rage, so intense that her ears start to ring. It is all so clear to her now.

“Ben must go alone,” Luke concludes. “And you belong here. With the Resistance.”

She abruptly stands, glaring down at him in distaste. “I will go,” she announces. “I will help the Resistance. But I can’t do this anymore.”

He stares up at her blankly. “Do what?”

“I can’t be a Jedi,” she proclaims. “If this is what I have to do to be a ‘true’ Jedi, then I don’t want to be. I don’t want to let go of my attachments. I don’t want to lose the people I love. I don’t want to do any of that.” She reaches around to the back of her neck and untethers her cloak from her shoulders.

Brown, thick, symbolic. It is the cloak that Luke had gifted her all those years ago, after he’d found her and taken her in on Jakku. She found the void of space cold, and began to shiver after the heated excitement of leaving the planet had subsided. He removed his cloak from around his shoulders and draped it over hers. It was big on her at the time - still is, a bit - but she wore it every day ever since.

For someone so righteous about severing earthly attachments, a glimmer of pain still flickers across Luke’s eyes as she defiantly holds the cloak out to him in one hand.

“Rey,” he chokes. “Don’t do this.”

She tilts her chin up stubbornly and thrusts the cloak at him. “I no longer wish to be a Jedi Knight,” she says. “I choose to leave the Jedi Order.”

When he fails to show any signs of reacting, she stonily releases it into his lap, turns on her heel, and sweeps out of the room.

* * *

Supreme Leader Snoke lounges lackadaisically on this throne. A knowing smirk plays faintly on his lips, a mischievous pucker on the withered canvas of an ancient face. He lightly drums the tips of his fingers against the arm of his throne.

Waiting. Anticipating.

“Supreme Leader.”

The sound is like music to the mangled orifices that remain of his ears. General Armitage Hux - his right-hand man, a ruthless, rabid cur that he has successfully manipulated into a sharp tool - calls him through the holographic comm.

Snoke’s eyes land expectantly on his miniature projection.

“The rebel _Ben_ _Solo_ has boarded our ship,” Hux informs him. “He arrived alone in a TIE fighter and surrendered himself to our troops. He carried no weapons and nothing was found in the fighter. The autopilot was set to this location; he came willingly.”

“Excellent,” Snoke croons. “Escort him to me yourself.”

Hux bows his head in obedience. “Yes, Supreme Leader.”

* * *

Ben can hear the familiar echo of Snoke’s cackle as the elevator door flies open.

Escorted by a scrawny, weaselly-looking redhead, whose nose appeared to be perpetually wrinkled in a permanent sneer, Ben takes his first step into the notorious Throne Room of Supreme Leader Snoke. He never thought he’d end up here.

He sweeps his eyes over his surroundings, inwardly noting that it’s nothing short of what he would typically expect. It’s got all the cliches of a diabolical throne room. High ceilings, lots of space, a crap-load of red and black. A big, grand throne as the centrepiece, situated on the furthest side of the room to the entrance, forcing any visitor to walk an unnecessarily long, incredibly awkward distance to meet its occupant. The only thing that remotely catches his interest is the glaring absence of Praetorian Guards, yet to be restocked after he and Rey had demolished them only weeks ago.

“Welcome, young Solo,” Snoke purrs. “I have been expecting you. It has been a long time coming. You’re finally here where you belong.” Slowly, he lifts himself up from his seat, grunting from the pain of the wound in his abdomen. He chuckles malevolently. “Though I must say, you did put up quite a fight,” he adds in afterthought, patting his wound indicatively.

Ben remains silent and poker-faced. He stares up at Snoke with inscrutable eyes, following the Supreme Leader’s movements shrewdly.

“Although I have always wondered... _when_...you would finally come to me,” Snoke continues, “I never doubted that you _would_.” He cocks his head to the side. “Come forward.”

Ben does not need to be dragged this time. He withdraws from the redhead and advances a few steps of his own accord, no fear or hesitation in his stride.

This pleases the Supreme Leader. “You have seen it, haven’t you? You have realised. It is time.”

Ben gulps thickly, the act betraying his stony exterior. His jaw pops as it clenches.

“Tell me, my worthy apprentice,” Snoke whispers. “Are you ready to learn the truth about your fate?”

Ben’s lips part as he chokes out a trembly breath. He raises his gaze to the Supreme Leader.

Steely. Resolved.

His response pours out of him like water. “Yes.”


	10. Remember what we were fighting for

Fully decked-out in her orange pilot’s jumpsuit, a helmet planted snugly between her arm and her hip, Rey of Jakku marches steadfastly onwards to the docking bay of the Raddus. She keeps her head down, gaze lowered, back straight. She’s a woman on a mission, and it’s clear to anyone within a twenty-foot radius that she’s taking no prisoners today. Her helmet ungracefully thwacks against the inner transparisteel of her X-wing as she carelessly lobs it inside, the echoey bang an audible symbol of her frustration, her rashness, her mood.

The hangar is empty. All pilots were deployed soon after the news had spread that the shields were down. She has some catching up to do.

“Look who it is!”

She freezes. It would seem she is not the only one who is late to the party.

Cringing at the exclamation, but ultimately electing to ignore it, she heaves herself up onto the fighter.

A band of her fellow Jedi approach her in their own pilot gear, apparently much more spirited about the upcoming fight than she is. Among them are Catyra - poised, petite, and elegant as ever, even in the jumpsuit - Frigo - dark-skinned, muscular, a perpetual smirk on his boyish features - Kira - brunette and unfailingly intimidating in any circumstance - and another whose name she never even bothered to learn.

“Joinin’ us up there, Rey?” Frigo asks.

“Look, I’m not in the mood,” she snaps irritably. She slides into her seat and plops on her helmet with cantankerous finality.

“Jeez, okay,” Frigo scoffs following a brief, affronted silence. “I was just askin’.”

“Someone’s in a mood,” Catyra mumbles, only partially under her breath.

Rey’s grip tightens reactively against the yoke. At the sound of her voice, the tenuous band holding her temper together snaps. She wrenches off her helmet. “You know what, _Cat_?”

But before she can finish her tirade, a resounding boom on the other side of the bay quakes the floor. Rey twists her head just in time to glimpse the blinding light of a raging inferno hurtling straight towards her.

The force of the explosion violently flings her from the X-wing.

* * *

Rey lands on her side. Her ears are ringing as she lifts her cheek up from the floor, and she winces at the harsh sting of the bruises on her cheekbone, her shoulder, her hip. The soles of her boots flatten against the concrete as she sluggishly pushes herself up onto her elbows, her head swimming in the aftermath of the blast.

If only the explosion had occurred approximately five seconds sooner, before she’d decided to yank off her helmet in a fit of rage.

A noise. Dull, fuzzy, incoherent. As if someone was speaking to her through sealed transparisteel.

As her mind progressively clears, she slowly recognises the sound.

“Rey. Rey. Rey!”

She squints up at the hazy figure looming over her, her vision sharpening with every blink.

It’s Kira.

“Rey, get up! Take my hand!” she urges.

A surge of panic rips through Rey’s chest as the world around her seems to swivel back into place. She gasps and whips her head around, absorbing the brilliance of the fire, the heat of the flames, and the cacophony of blaring warning signals. Her hand flies up to meet Kira’s, who then hauls her up onto her feet with a vigorous tug.

Once upright, she notices the group of Jedi surrounding her, faces all twisted in individual expressions of concern.

“Are you alright?” Frigo asks.

“Y-Yeah,” she rasps, her own disbelief at the fact tweaking the intonation of her reply. “I am. How...?”

“Cat broke your fall with the Force,” Kira answers, turning indicatively to a sheepish Catyra over her shoulder.

Rey’s eyes land on her in surprise. “I... Thank you.”

Catyra only shrugs in response.

Awkwardly, Rey turns back to the others. “What happened?”

“The First Order. They found our ship,” the nameless Jedi answers. “They’re boarding as we speak.”

“Look!” Frigo shouts, levelling a finger across the bay.

They whirl around in tandem to discover the first wave of stormtroopers disembarking from their shuttles. They march in uniform lines through the fire, doubly intimidating against the backdrop of the flames.

“Well?” Frigo speaks, producing his lightsaber from his belt and igniting it. “You guys bring your weapons?”

“Always,” Kira quips.

The others unsheathe their respective lightsabers in unanimous response.

Dazed, Rey merely watches as they begin to tread off as a group.

Frigo notices her lingering behind, and then pauses. “You coming, Rey?” he asks - lightly, naturally, as if she were a part of them.

She runs her eyes across them as they all turn back to wait for her.

Maybe she has been all along.

Dumbly, she nods, before tentatively drawing her own lightsaber and bracing it over her chest.

Frigo smiles at her. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Chapped lips stretch over blackened teeth into a gnarly grin. Supreme Leader Snoke towers over a docile Ben Solo as the latter obediently lowers himself onto one knee.

“You and I both know,” Snoke declares, “of the uncanny parallels between yourself and your grandfather. Both immensely gifted in the Force, both pressured to fulfil a misplaced destiny, both wrongfully cast aside for actions that were beyond your control. Well, it’s no coincidence.”

Ben keeps his head bowed, his eyes downcast, and his tongue held.

“Ever since your lineage was outed, you have been strangely drawn to the legacy of Vader,” Snoke continues. “Well, child. That is the Force. Showing you. Guiding you. Trying to tell you what you need to know.” His expression sours. “But you were sorely misled. Impeded by your uncle and his archaic teachings. He undid all the progress I had made on you during your most formative years.”

A considerable distance away, Hux stands by and wordlessly listens, inwardly bemused by the implications behind the Supreme Leader’s words.

“But you resisted,” Snoke says in a joyous hiss. “Thankfully, you resisted. You never truly digested Skywalker’s principles. You knew they were outdated lies. All they have done for you is inhibit you. From unleashing your true power. From living your life in freedom. From having what you _desire_.”

Ben’s shoulders infinitesimally tense at the last point.

“Yes,” Snoke hums. “The girl. The only thing you’ve ever truly wanted in this world. And he wouldn’t even let you have that.” His smile widens when he notices the boy’s hands balling into angry fists. “I have something to show you, young Solo.”

It is then that Ben raises his head, eyes marginally widened in curiosity.

Snoke ambles a few steps back to retrieve a small, durasteel box from beside his throne. A delighted smirk adorns his shrivelled features as he sets it down onto the ground before Ben. “Go ahead,” he ushers, returning to his seat on the throne. “Open it.”

Ben blinks up at him hesitantly, and then reaches out an unsure hand.

“What’s wrong, child?” Snoke prompts when his fingers never touch the durasteel. “Inside, you will find the truth. Your destiny is nothing to be afraid of.”

But Ben only remains frozen in outstretched uncertainty.

“Alright,” Snoke relents. “I’ll show you myself.” With an effortless flick of his hand, the lid of the box flies open.

Ben suppresses a gasp.

_Could it be?_

“H-How-?”

“You know what it is, don’t you?” Snoke says.

“Y-Yes,” Ben breathes.

He does. It’s withered and discoloured, melted and deformed, singed around the edges by a fire extinguished long ago. The glossy black that Ben was accustomed to visualising from years of examining old holographs is now dulled and tarnished by char and ash. But the shape is still there. Every soul in the galaxy knows it. The skeletal face. The round, lifeless eyes. The beak-like mouthpiece. It’s undeniable.

“This,” Snoke says. “This is your destiny, Ben Solo. This is the legacy that you must preserve. Your grandfather’s mask was the symbol for power and greatness across the entire galaxy for decades.”

At the far end of the room, General Hux straightens in shock when he deduces what is inside.

“But your uncle mercilessly killed him,” Snoke goes on. “ _You_ are the reason why his legacy will not have died with him. _You_ are the reason why he will live on. _You_ will be the one to finish what he started.”

Ben’s eyes are immovably fixated on the object in front of him. After years of studying what few records there were of his grandfather’s life, he is finally laying eyes on the most iconic one of all.

“Reach out,” Snoke coaxes. “Touch it. It will show you what you need to see.”

Ben gulps. He is much less wary this time. Driven by impulse, intrigue, and desire, he reaches both hands out, his palms precariously hovering an inch above the dusty surface of the helmet. Time seems to crawl as his fingers gradually lower to it, each millimetre of remaining distance a seemingly heavier feat than the last.

And then they make contact.

Ben breathes a heaving gasp and stiffens against the open box. He pinches his eyes shut and bows his head over the helmet, grunting and writhing as a vision overcomes him.

Up high on his throne, the Supreme Leader watches, a grisly leer marring his disfigured face.

* * *

Rey jams her lightsaber into the last of the four opponents she’d been facing off at once. She bares her teeth in a feral snarl as she heaves the weapon through the armour, the blue hue of the lightsaber reflectively bouncing off the beads of blood and sweat on her face.

Her fighting style - it’s changed. It used to be much more graceful, much more refined. But right now, it can only be described as savage, the vigour behind each movement primarily motivated by rage and tumultuous emotion. Her jabs are heavier, her swings wider. She roars with every weighty clobber of her weapon.

She is angry. She is hurt. Most of all, she misses Ben - so much so that she’s fighting like him just to feel like some part of him is here.

A shrill, throaty scream to her right demands her attention.

It’s Catyra. She’s locked in a chokehold by a stormtrooper with a plasma dagger, braced only inches from her neck.

Rey glances around, spotting no other combatant within the immediate vicinity. “Catyra!” she shouts.

The girl is hardly able to give her a sidelong look of acknowledgement, but it is enough. Instinctively channeling the Force, Rey hurls her deactivated lightsaber in Catyra’s direction, aiming it straight for her hand.

Within the span of a single second, Catyra catches the lightsaber, holds it up to the stormtrooper’s face, and ignites it over her shoulder. The blade impales the stormtrooper right through the skull, leaving a round, steaming hole in the centre of his helmet.

As he tumbles to the ground, his weight drags Catyra down with him.

Rey sprints over to free her. She grunts as she wrenches the dead stormtrooper off the other girl, who wheezes limply and exhaustedly on the floor. Rey extends a hand to her. “Are you alright?”

Lethargically, Catyra takes it, allowing Rey to pull her up onto her feet. “Yes,” she breathes, regarding her with warm, grateful eyes. “Thank you, Rey.”

Tentatively, Rey smiles. “You’re welcome, Catyra.”

“Cat,” the other girl corrects her. She shoots back an appreciative smile of her own. “Friends call me Cat.”

Rey’s smile widens. “Okay. Cat.”


	11. You gave me everything and nothing

His palms fly off the helmet and meet the floor. He pants into the ground on his hands and knees, sweaty hair curling over bulging eyes.

Snoke releases a malevolent chuckle as he rises to his feet. “Yes,” he whispers. “Yes. Do you see it now, my young apprentice?”

Numbly, Ben nods, still hunched over at his feet. “Yes,” he says. “I see it now.”

The smile on Snoke’s mangled lips broadens. “Then it is time.”

Ben looks up.

“Time for you to let go of your attachments to the Resistance, to your uncle, to your parents,” Snoke preaches. “Time for you to finally take your rightful place by my side, right here, with the First Order.” He can still sense the conflict in the young man’s body language - crouched, tensed shoulders coupled with a glum, reluctant grimace. “You know it to be true,” he continues. “You know you do not belong with the Resistance. You never did.”

Ben’s entire frame slumps as he surrenders to the truth. “Yes. Yes, Supreme Leader. You are right,” he murmurs woodenly. “I am ready. Ready to take my place by your side. Ready to serve you and commit myself to the First Order - to the Dark Side.”

Gleeful wrinkles deepen on the Supreme Leader’s features at the sweet sound of his declaration - the very words he has been yearning to hear for thirty long years. Everything he has done, everything he has worked towards, is finally, mercifully, coming to fruition.

But unbeknownst to him, his cloud of euphoria would quickly dissipate at the next three words.

“On one condition,” Ben adds.

Snoke’s face immediately falls.

“The girl,” Ben elaborates. “Rey. I want her on our side. I cannot do this without her.”

A displeased snarl momentarily flickers across Snoke’s expression, but it is hastily reassembled into a taut, tactful smile. “My apprentice,” he answers, “it would be hypocritical of me to condemn Luke Skywalker for precluding you from having her, and then turn around and do the same. You are welcome to attempt to turn her to your heart’s content. I will not stop you.

“But there is something you must understand. I have seen her soul; I have read it. She has the spirit of a true Jedi. She will never be turned. Should you choose to join me, you will forever be on opposing sides, forever trying and failing to turn one another. I tell you this now because, unlike Skywalker, I choose to be honest with you. It will always be a fruitless endeavour.”

Ben’s demeanour does not change throughout the progression of Snoke’s speech. It’s as if he’d already known the Supreme Leader’s answer before he’d even verbalised the question - as if his desperate request were just a ditch effort, nothing more. “Okay,” he says lightly, curtly. “Alright. Then I decline.”

If there were colour in Snoke’s face, he would have blanched. “What?” The demand comes out in an outraged hiss.

Ben presses his lips together and shrugs. “I decline. No thanks.” Without so much as an inkling of significance or remorse, he coolly clambers back up onto his feet.

“You _decline_?” Snoke echoes wrathfully. “After all I have shown you... After all you have seen... You deny yourself the glorious destiny you were born to fulfil, all for the love of one plain, inconsequential girl?”

An annoyed scowl etches itself into Ben’s forehead. “I don’t care for that description.”

“You are a fool,” Snoke growls. “Just like your father. You have too much of his heart in you, young Solo.”

“And you are not as powerful as you think,” Ben counters boldly. “Perhaps there was a time when you had a firm grip on me, Supreme Leader, but that time is long gone, and you’ve missed your chance. I think it’s about time you learn that.”

Snoke’s fingernails dig angry indentations into the palms of his hands. He had not expected this. He could not have possibly foreseen the strength of the boy’s connection with a lowly _scavenger_ from Jakku. A _nobody_ , of all the life forms in the galaxy. The very thought of it makes him sick. “General Hux!” he roars, startling Hux off the wall. “Seize this wretched child and detain him somewhere he can watch his pathetic friends die!”

Hux is already flouncing over to Ben by the time Snoke finalises his command.

“Don’t you dare,” Ben spits at Hux, holding out a cautionary finger. “I already told you; you lay a finger on me, I’ll kill you.”

Hux instinctively halts a few feet away. He glowers at him with vicious spite, but his spinelessness ultimately cements him to the spot.

“You coward,” Snoke disparages him. “Very well. If you are too afraid to seize him, I will just _kill_ him myself!”

Clenched fists give way to splayed, spidery fingers. Snoke leaps out of his throne and thrusts his arms out in furious vengeance. Serpentine bolts of stellar-white lightning shoot out from his fingertips, illuminating the room with an ear-splitting crackle. Limb after limb of Force lightning bifurcates into a million different paths, all leading straight to a single destination.

It pierces him right through the chest.

Ben flinches, and stumbles back a few steps, but his feet remain steadily planted on the ground. He stands stock-still, composed, unfazed, staring back at Snoke with stony, defiant eyes.

Snoke’s barbarous sneer slackens into a limp, open-mouthed gawk. The lightning from his fingers dwindles lamely into neutral air.

Ben raises a hand to mockingly brush some invisible dirt off his shoulder.

The room falls silent. It is a tense, baffled silence - almost deafening in its intensity. It seems to get louder with every passing second, nudging the Supreme Leader closer and closer to the verge of insanity.

A click of static from Hux’s comlink breaks it. “Sir,” calls a voice on the other side, “we’ve just received a-”

Hux hastily fumbles for the comlink on his belt and hisses a frantic, “Not now,” right into its speaker.

Snoke pays no mind to the interruption. Instead, he stares in dumbfounded shock at the young man before him - calm, upright, not afflicted in the slightest by what should have been a fatal attack. He doesn’t understand it. “How?” he wonders, a desperate crack in his voice. “How is this possible? Unless...”

His expression shifts as something dawns upon him. The epiphany strikes him, shocks him, like his own attack of Force lightning to the chest.

Eyes bulging with the realisation, he screams, “Hux! Shoot him, now!”

Hesitating for only the split second that it takes him to register the command, Hux scrabbles for his blaster and then fires a single shot at the back of Ben’s head.

It phases right through him, and strikes the wall only a few feet to the left of Snoke’s throne.

Snoke’s jaw drops open. “No...” he mumbles. His entire body begins to quiver, constricting on itself in uncontainable fury. “ _No_!”

* * *

_Ten minutes ago_

“Sir,” a First Order controller piped up from his station, halting his commanding officer halfway through a step. “We’re getting what appears to be a cryogenic hibernation chamber on our scanners. It’s heading right for us.”

His superior hummed in contemplation. “I see. Well, let it in. I doubt a single individual in hibernation will do much damage. Get some of our troops to check it out.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

A handful of stormtroopers gathered around the cryogenic pod.

“Who is it?” one inquired.

Two of his comrades attempted to peer in through the transparisteel. “Can’t tell,” one said. “It’s too foggy.”

“We’d better take it into the medical wing, then,” another supposed. “Make sure we don’t kill them if it’s one of our guys.”

“And what if it’s not?” the first suggested.

The others all shifted unsurely.

“These pods are well equipped,” he asserted, emboldened by their silence. “It doesn’t take any further measures to safely wake someone from hibernation. I think we should open it here.”

“I think we should ask General Hux first,” another proposed.

The first groaned. “Fine.” He tapped on the comm on his wrist. “Sir, we’ve just received a-”

“Not now,” snapped Armitage Hux on the other side.

He provided no further response.

The stormtrooper turned to his friends in brief hesitation, before giving a cursory shrug. “Well, you heard him. I’ll do the honours.” He kneeled down beside the cryogenic pod, smoothing his fingers over the controls in examination. A few intuitive taps was all it took to unlock it.

The others all inched forward, peeking down at the murky transparisteel with restless curiosity.

His fingers found the groove of the latch. Finally, he clicked it open.

* * *

_One hour ago_

Ben was just on the verge of a panic attack when his eye caught a Xi-class light shuttle cruising nearby.

He smiled. Devoid of answers, the universe opportunely decided to present him with one.

He swung the TIE fighter around and converged upon it, one finger hovered over the comm control in anticipation. Once within sufficient proximity, the comm light flared to life.

“Please identify,” requested the shuttle controller over the radio.

Ben hit the speaker toggle. “Fighter 3642, requesting on-boarding of one passenger.”

“What is your reason for on-boarding?”

“My reactor’s been compromised. I’m running on fumes, here.”

“Please identify.”

“I just did.”

“Please identify _yourself_.”

Ben’s grip tightened irritatedly on the yoke. “F-N-two-one-eight...” He hesitated. “Six.”

A brief pause.

“You may come aboard,” the controller allowed.

“Nice!” Ben whooped.

“What was that?”

He winced when he realised his finger was still on the toggle. “Thank you. Much appreciated,” he amended.

* * *

There were only two First Order privates on the light shuttle. They bickered for a while over who would need to go out and unseal the airlock to collect the TIE pilot. It wasn’t until the TIE had locked itself onto their shuttle that the younger was crudely shoved out of the cockpit with an abrasive, “Just do it.”

He glowered resentfully at his counterpart before turning to administer the airlock controls. As an escape pod, large enough to comfortably fit only one horizontal passenger inside, glided into the airlock, the private peered curiously at it through the viewport.

“Well?” the other private shouted from the cockpit.

Annoyance flitted across the younger’s features. “It’s just him!”

“Go get him, then!”

He groaned. “I am!” He ran his fingers over a few more controls and then slammed a big, red button with the side of his fist.

The airlock clicked shut.

With a sigh of exasperation, he wrenched open the sliding door and stepped inside.

The TIE pilot hadn’t yet exited the pod, apparently deciding to remain leisurely reclined within.

“Guess I have to do everything around here,” the private mumbled unhappily. He rounded the pod, its transparisteel too fogged to discern who was inside. “Alright,” he bleated, unlatching it by the lid, “wakey-wakey, Princess-”

He was stunned before he could finish his gripe.

* * *

Ben shoved the two unconscious privates into the escape pod and jettisoned them back to Starkiller Base.

“So long, idiots,” he sang. He raced back into the cockpit, frantically raking it for anything even resembling what he needed.

It didn’t take him long. It was hard to miss the glaring white of the inactive cryogenic chamber pod in the corner of the room. Just one, but it was more than good enough.

“Oh, _perfect_!” he rejoiced. He threw himself in front of it on his knees, running his hands all over it in jubilation.

Grinning elatedly, he lugged it over to the charging station and plugged it in.

* * *

Ben stared glumly out the viewport as he waited for the cryogen to activate. He thought about Snoke, up there, calling for him. Awaiting him. He thought about his mother, thought about his father. He thought about Rey.

A mellifluous ring from the cryogenic pod tore him out of his reverie. Wasting no time, he hurried over to it and lowered himself back onto his knees.

His fingers found the small compartment at his belt. He paused.

This was the real thing.

He unclipped the compartment from his belt and tipped its contents onto his palm. Two red vials tumbled out.

Ben smirked. Just before he’d left, his father had stopped him a final time for one last attempt at convincing him to take two more coaxium vials. One for reach shield station, he’d reasoned. Thankfully - albeit a bit begrudgingly - Ben had accepted.

“Okay,” he breathed anxiously, one hand on the latch of the pod and the other closed around the vials. All trembling fingers and shaky breaths, he cracked open the lid of the pod, tossed the vials in, and slammed it back shut.

Fortunately, nothing exploded.

“Alright,” he sighed. “That wasn’t even the hard part.” He darted another glance at the glowing, red temperature monitor on the side of the pod. “Please, please let this work.”

_If this is how I die_ , he mused as he raised a quivering hand, _Rey will never forgive me_.

It didn’t appear as though he had a choice.

Before he could think twice about it, he squeezed his eyes shut and balled his hand into a fist.

The vials inside cracked open.

* * *

_Present_ _Day_

Only three things happen in Snoke’s Throne Room before the Supremacy is blown to pieces.

Snoke looks at Ben. Gaze furious, mouth ajar, frame trembling with unadulterated rage.

Ben smiles. Cheeky, spirited, punctuated by the gleaming, mischievous eyes of his father.

Plumes of fire and smoke engulf the room as Ben’s apparition disappears. It fades into nothingness like perfect evaporation, solid particles dispersing and dissolving into thin air.

* * *

“Up ahead! I see ‘em!” Rey shouts.

She makes a beeline for the swarm of Resistance fighters loosely congregated around the perimeter of Starkiller Base, her team of fellow Jedi closely in tow. Her X-wing swings and soars effortlessly under her direction, as if it were merely an extension of her body.

“I see ‘em, too!” Kira affirms. “We’re goin’ in, guys!”

“Poe! Come in!” Rey calls into her comm. “Poe! Do you copy?”

“...ey?” crackles Poe’s muffled response. “Rey! You guys made it!”

“We’re coming in! Catch us up to speed!”

“Alright. Right now, we’re trying to bypass the first line of defence, but we’re getting ass-kicked by TIEs. There are too many of them; we can’t get past!”

“Not a problem! We got this!” Rey assures.

“Yeah, we do!” Frigo concurs.

Rey smirks in exhilaration, her entire body pulsing with adrenaline.

She finds herself revelling in the collective energy of her Jedi peers, a completely novel sensation to her. It radiates palpably off of each of them - dense, heady, contagious - and buzzes between them like galvanic currents of electricity. They’re like vibrating pockets of energy, contemporaneously amplifying and feeding off of one another.

On top of all of that, Rey loves a good space battle, so she is simply thrilled nonetheless. “Alright!” she barks. “I’ll take the-”

The boom of an explosion so powerful that it almost rocks her X-wing off-course ripples violently through the distance.

* * *

Out in space, tens of thousands of miles from the Supremacy, Ben Solo’s physical form collapses onto the ground of the Xi-class light shuttle.

Eyes closed, hair sweaty, and hunched over with his knees, elbows, and forehead pressed to the floor, he wheezes as the full brunt of the exhaustion thoroughly overtakes him. He remains there for a while - breathing, struggling - and when the pain starts to become familiar to him, he fights it to heave himself up for a peek out the viewport.

He has to slump the top half of his body over the length of a passenger bench, but it is a high enough vantage point for him to see. Across the void of space, all those miles away, the Supremacy crumbles under brilliant, red flames as coaxium fire consumes it.

He smiles at the glorious sight.

Snoke did not survive it. Ben saw it with his own, incorporeal eyes, and he feels it, now, through Snoke’s absence in the Force. And for the first time in the entirety of his life, Ben Solo finally feels free.

He slides weakly down from the pane of the viewport and folds his back over the length of the bench. “Sometimes, I amaze even myself,” he murmurs to the ceiling.

Slapdash as it was, his plan did work. Should the rebels succeed in stopping the attack on Hosnian, that should be the end of it. Snoke. The tyranny. The war. The galaxy would be free of it all.

It sure took a lot, but to Ben, it was worth it - even after making the ultimate sacrifice.

Force projection. The act of visually manifesting oneself in a certain place, while being physically located elsewhere. It’s a technique he’d discovered one night during Padawan training, while he was trawling through stacks of old Jedi texts. Fascinated by the notion, he’d studied it vigorously throughout his training, fantasising about the infinite number of ways it could be effectively employed. But he’d never actually attempted it until today. And the reason why is quite compelling.

According to the Jedi texts, and thus the history that they are based upon, prolonged use of the technique had the severest of consequences: death. The effort - the sheer exertion of such strenuous energy - is enough to kill its user.

It is this very exhaustion that debilitates Ben to the bench. He can feel it, like dark ink, seeping into his bloodstream and staining his whole body. Before he allows himself to succumb to it - the pain, the fatigue, the darkness - he opens his eyes to blink only a few more times. He envisions that his mother is there, gently stroking him by the hair, that his father is there, shooting him a proud, knowing wink, and that Rey is there, folding a hand over his.

Then he blacks out.

* * *

Rey jerks in her seat in alarm. Her jaw, having been agape in mid-sentence, snaps shut with a hard click.

“What was that?” Catyra gasps.

Without so much as a glance in the right direction, Rey immediately knows. She can feel it.

“Look!” cries Kira. “That’s Snoke’s ship!”

Rey keeps her eyes resolutely trained forward. She knows. It was Ben. He did something.

“It’s completely destroyed. Someone blew it up!” Kira describes.

“Do you think Snoke was on that ship?” Frigo speculates.

Too numb to participate in the conversation, Rey only gnaws on her bottom lip in distress.

_Ben_. She can no longer feel him through the Force.


	12. I’d never forget you as long as I live

The Resistance’s mission proves successful.

Starkiller Base implodes, collapsing in on itself until suddenly, pure, bright sunlight bursts forth, and the sun that had been absorbed merely hours ago is reborn. The Hosnian System lives to see another day.

With most of the First Order having been stationed on either Starkiller Base or the Supremacy - both now completely obliterated - the remaining legions surrender and the war is officially declared over.

All rebels, including the heroic pilots in Hosnian led by Poe Dameron, are given the order to rendezvous at the Resistance Base on the planet of D’Qar - among them, the former Jedi Knight Rey of Jakku, who, despite her zealousness in battle, cannot bring herself to be so celebratory about the victory.

* * *

A crowd of rebels swarms Rey’s X-wing upon landing, all clapping, cheering, and waiting to pat her on the back in congratulation.

As callous as it seems, she disregards them all. She offers nothing more than a cursory smile before squeezing her way through the mob, darting out into the open spaceport.

Fighter after fighter of triumphant pilots land on the port. Her eyes hungrily scour through each one, desperately searching for that mop of tousled, black hair to pop out from under an unfastened helmet.

She’s out there for a while. Friends and loved ones rejoice all around her, throwing themselves at each other in celebration and reunion. It makes her simultaneously happy and sick.

Her heart really starts to pound when she’s already made her fourth lap of the port and she still hasn’t spotted a single trace of him. The arrivals have significantly slowed, to the point where she can single out each approaching fighter and individually inspect its pilot. Familiar faces emerge from those helmets, yes. But not the one she’s looking for.

As the crowd noticeably thins, a nauseating sensation of defeat begins to creep up on her. She refuses to succumb to it, for it would only make it all too real. If she continues to hold onto the hope that he’s still out there, maybe he still will be.

But this is getting all too familiar, now. The denial. The waiting. The stubborn delusion that she can define her own reality. It feels exactly the same, staring up at the sky, waiting for the right ship to arrive, but not knowing if or when it will. As she gradually realises this, the same feeling of hopelessness, of despair, of dejection - the very one that had crashed down upon her the day that Luke had convinced her to leave Jakku - truly intensifies.

Her feet slow to a dispirited trudge. She can’t let this happen to herself again. She can’t let herself fall into the same spiral of fruitless hope.

He’s gone. She can’t feel him anymore.

Her features twist into a crestfallen grimace as she starts to cry. She can feel the sobs bubbling up her throat before they’re even released - big, loud, ugly. Her entire frame shudders in anticipation with mourning, with grief, with melancholy.

As the hope drains from her body, so too does her vitality. Her livelihood. Her light. It’s like a flame - one which she has so desperately struggled to keep alight, feeding it and fanning it in stubborn earnest, but which has finally, hopelessly dwindled into extinguishment.

The forceful yank of the dice against her neck reignites it.

They snap off her necklace with an abrupt tug, and then soar through the air in a sharp, straight line to somewhere across the distance. Her eyes acutely trace their path - hunting, searching - until, within the span of a second, they land in the palm of a hand.

The sob escapes her.

There he is - as tall, and burly, and wild, and messy, and frustrating, and handsome, and exasperating, and _dangerous_ as the day she met him. He stands just a few yards in front of her, his hand aloft, the dice hanging from his fingers, covered in blood and sweat and char. His hair is dark and matted against his forehead, his posture is limp with exhaustion. His eyes are underscored with deep, gloomy, exhausted circles that seem to rival the darkness of his irises themselves. All in all, he looks like hell. Which seems to be average for Ben Solo.

He manages a weary smile. “Thanks for holding onto these for me.”

Her feet propel her into a mad sprint towards him, her hair blowing wildly in the wind. She slams right into him, like a ship ramming into a meteor at light speed.

Even in all his affliction, he catches her steadily, their lips instinctively crashing into each other. It’s the hardest, sweetest, maddest, saddest, happiest, most desperate kiss they’ve ever shared, and it feels like ecstasy.

As he runs his lips across hers, over and over and over again, he laments over how stupid he was, all those times he ever restrained himself from doing this. Holding her, kissing her, and cherishing her like this feels more right to him than anything in the world.

And while he’s still stewing in the sentiment, she suddenly decides to remove her lips from his and smack him hard on the shoulder, tearing him from his reverie.

“Ow!” he complains, wincing as he rubs the affected area.

“Don’t you ever... _ever_ do that to me again!” she explodes at him, waving an admonishing finger in his face.

He rolls his eyes and gives an infuriating smirk, before dipping his head to kiss her again.

She twists out of his reach. “Ben Solo!” she chides. “I’m serious! You ever do that to me again, and we’re _through_!”

“Alright, alright,” he yields, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Promise!” she demands.

“I promise,” he laughs.

She only gives a frustrated sigh before wrenching him into another kiss.

* * *

Leia beams as she gazes out at the sea of Resistance soldiers milling about on the ground below, celebrating and rejoicing with claps on backs, fierce embraces, and hearty laughter. She rests her hands gently against the concrete balustrade of the grand balcony, basking in the glow of a galaxy restored to peacetime - for the second time in her life. She is a picture of perfect royalty, despite her recent efforts to dispel the antiquated image, her white, ceremonial robes delicately draped in feathery wisps around her elegant frame, and her hair immaculately laced up in a flawless, intricate design.

As in wartime, her authoritative voice rings true and clear, piercing right through the clamouring of the crowd and instantly demanding the attention of every Resistance member in the vicinity. “The war...” she triumphantly declares, “...is over!”

Ceremonial trumpets blare a victorious tune as the crowd erupts into thunderous applause.

Out step Han, Chewie, and Luke from the double doors behind her, each greeting the audience below with a grin, wave, or in Luke’s case, a rigid nod, of their own. Han throws a celebratory arm around his wife and plants a huge, sloppy kiss on her cheek, making her blush. Chewie wraps both hairy arms around Han and Luke, the latter struggling to remain stoic and dignified under the Wookiee’s rowdy embrace.

“Thank you - all of you - for your tremendous work and sacrifice,” Leia announces. “In particular, we would like to honour these few vital folk, whose bravery and heroism we could not have won this war without.” She turns to regard her first honouree with an affectionate grin. “Poe Dameron, for leading our starfighters to victory on Starkiller Base.”

Poe steps out onto the balcony to the chorus of earsplitting cheers. He smirks proudly at his General, and winks at the faint eye roll she gives him, before respectfully bowing his head and accepting the medal that she slings over his neck.

“Finn,” Leia continues, “our reformed stormtrooper, for being our number-one source for all things First Order.”

Finn hops outside and fires a couple of playful finger guns at Chewie, who only sniffs before carelessly tossing Finn’s medal at him. Finn catches it with a bemused frown.

“Rose,” Leia says, “for bravely venturing out on her first combat mission to disable every shield generator on Starkiller Base.”

Finn jumps back a few steps to escort Rose out by the arm. She limps feebly against him, still tentative on her injured leg, but emerges with the widest of grins dimpling her cheeks.

Chewie gives her a congratulatory roar and chivalrously places her medal over her head, all the while dutifully ignoring Finn’s wide-eyed look of consternation.

Han and Leia exchange an elated glance before the next honouree. For a long time, a moment like this would have been unfathomable to them. But here they are, now, together honouring their son as a Resistance hero. They could not have been more ecstatic.

“Ben Solo,” Leia bellows, “for successfully leading our strike team on Starkiller Base.”

All seven turn to face the double doors, eyes wide and smiles bright in anticipation of his arrival. Han’s arms are already outstretched at the ready, white-knuckled hands excitedly wrapped around the token in his grip.

But the double doors remain obstinately vacant, and no such honouree steps out.

Leia clears her throat. “ _Ben_... _Solo_?” she repeats more forcefully.

Han drops his arms in a slump of frustration. “Dammit. Where is that boy?”

Leia groans and raises a hand to her forehead, shaking her head with exasperation. “I thought you woke him this morning.”

“I did! He got up! I don’t know where he went!” Han exclaims defensively.

Chewie growls out his assent.

“See? Chewie can back me up!” Han insists.

“Forget it,” Leia sighs dismissively. “He can’t make it here on time, he doesn’t get a medal.” She turns back to her audience below and flashes a forced smile. “Looks like someone slept in today!”

Easy laughter ripples through the crowd.

“Okay, next...” Leia powers on. “We would like to thank Jedi Knight Rey! For demonstrating her courage on Starkiller Base, not only on the ground, but in the air, as well.”

They all turn to the doors in unison.

Empty, once again.

Leia’s smile falters. Ben, she understands. But Rey? Really?

Luke, too, is surprised, temporarily discarding his solemn facade as he cranes his neck to scowl into the room.

“Where is she?” Leia murmurs to him.

“I don’t... I don’t know,” Luke stammers in perplexity.

Finn and Rose glance at each other knowingly, but say nothing.

“Alright, well...” Leia says. “Guess these last two are up for grabs!”

* * *

Ben and Rey can hear the crowd’s uproarious laughter all the way from the spaceport. But they pay no mind to it; it’s merely background noise.

Hand in hand, they tiptoe across the empty hangar to the bucket of bolts on the far end of the room. After one, final sweep of their surroundings, they scurry up the boarding ramp.

* * *

A distant whir rouses our heroes on the balcony. They reactively tip their heads back, just in time to catch the sight of the Millennium Falcon shooting up into the sky and breaking the atmosphere.

“Hey!” Han barks indignantly. “That’s my ship!”

* * *

High above the surface of D’Qar, comfortably nestled in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, Rey turns to face the man she loves and closes her fingers over his knuckles.

He stares absently ahead, barely reacting to her touch with a faint twitch of his hand. His expression is oddly vacant, lips slightly parted and eyes glazed over, as if looking at something far, far away - something that only he can see. Shadowy circles blemish the space beneath his eyes, accentuating the paleness of his skin. His cheekbones protrude ever-so-slightly more from his face, making him appear gaunter. Bleaker.

Ever since he came back from that ship, he hasn’t really been the same. The shift has been marginal, so nobody else has been able to notice. But Rey can tell. Rey can sense it. He’s lost the light, the vigour, the tempestuous energy that was so characteristic to him that it was the first thing she ever noticed about him. He smiles a little less, jokes a little less, teases her a little less. Most notably, he behaves. He behaves a _lot_ more.

“Ben,” she speaks, to draw him out of his daze. “We have to make a decision.”

He swings his sluggish gaze onto her and regards her inquisitively. “What decision?”

She raises her eyebrows at him. “Where are we going?”

He gives her a tired grin. “I don’t know. Anywhere.”

“Anywhere?” she echoes.

“Yeah. Anywhere,” he repeats, and with that word, his demeanour is progressively lighter.

_Anywhere_. The very notion of it - of limitless freedom and opportunity - inundates them both with a new kind of peace. They share a smile, and then a kiss, savouring in the shared light of their newfound liberation.

“Oh wait, I know,” Ben pipes up, suddenly pulling back.

Rey eyes him curiously. “You do?”

“Yeah,” he says, and flashes her a mischievous smirk. “Jakku.”

He shields his head in his arms when she makes to slap him.

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry,” he chuckles. “Bad joke.”

She wrinkles her nose at him. It vexes her, but she is internally much gladder that he is still capable of doing so - a glimmer of the old Ben, still somewhere in there. “No, it’s okay. Because you just gave me an idea for where we should _actually_ go.”

“Oh yeah? Where?”

She smiles. “Varykino.”

“Oh, ha ha.”

She laughs at his comical grimace. “Well,” she sighs, “I guess we don’t have to decide right now.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “We’ve got time.”

She inclines her face towards the windscreen, peering out at the vast, unending reach of space. “You’ll tell me one day what happened on that ship, right?” she mentions. “With Snoke?”

He keeps his gaze locked on her profile. “Yes,” he affirms softly. He upturns his hand to hers, firmly looping their fingers together. “Like I said,” he murmurs, “we’ve got time.”

She closes her eyes and smiles. With a squeeze of his hand, she realises that he’s right. They do have time.

They’ve got their whole lives together.


End file.
